


les mots

by cedarmoons



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (love ya solas but......), Canon-Typical Violence, Demisexual Solas, Eventual Smut, F/M, Falling In Love, Fantastic Racism, Poetry Nerds Seducing Each Other Via (Erotic) Love Poems, Slow To Update, Sovelyan, Touch-Starved Solas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:32:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 81,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5227037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarmoons/pseuds/cedarmoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I hate and I love. Why, you may ask? I do not know. But it happens, and I <em>burn</em>.</p><p>(A love affair, through poems.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another kinkmeme prompt! surprise, surprise. no regrets. 
> 
> ¯\\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

The Hinterlands is alive at night. A wolf howls, soon joined by its pack; crickets chirp, singing their song to the large spring moon and its sister; the fire cracks as it devours its tinder, the logs popping and showering sparks.

Above the peaks of the Frostbacks, the Breach swirls slowly, as bright and terrible as in daylight. The Herald stares at it, her Anchored hand flexing every few heartbeats. “Are you scared, Solas?”

She refers to the Breach, of course, but he is unsure of what fear she speaks. Fear of the apocalypse? Fear of demons? Fear of death? “What is there to fear, Herald?” he asks, and arches an eyebrow. “The dark, perhaps? That is common, I have heard.”

His words prompt an unexpected smile from her. She looks away from the Breach and gazes at him, shaking her head slightly. She bites her lip, as if to hide her smile, and stares at the fire instead of him. Her eyes are bright and black in the flames’ flickers.

She has a secret.

“Do I amuse?” he asks at last.

The Herald sighs, shaking her head. “You just made me think of something, that’s all.”

“May I ask what that ‘something’ was?”

The Herald huffs out a small breath, a noise that almost sounds like a laugh. She reaches up and runs her fingers through her hair. “It’s, um. It’s just a few lines of poetry. ‘Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light—’”

“‘—I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night,’” he finishes, meeting her stare.

 

Wisdom lowers its hand, and the memory recedes. Solas blinks back into the library the spirit occupies, the shelves filled by books long forgotten by the physical world. Many of them no longer exist outside of the Fade.

“Ah,” says Wisdom, sounding apologetic. “I do not understand. What troubles you?”

He remembers reading those words during his quieter years, when Mythal still walked Elvhenan and the war against the Forgotten had lulled. He does not recall what gilt-leafed book the poem had been in, nor does he quite remember the day he had seen the words upon the page. But he knows that he had traced the words, and had vowed not to forget them.

He had forgotten.

The thought shames him.

“During my sleep, I witnessed atrocities committed by the human race. I may have handed the People their death knife, but humanity took the hilt and slit their throat. I felt the humans’ lust for blood, conquest, and power. They relish violence. Such a race can only be concerned with their own survival or their own gain. It seems antithetical that humans have an appreciation of anything refined,” he says.

And yet the Herald had been none of those things. She had been… mystifying.

“I hoped you could provide insight,” he allows. Wisdom would be invaluable to opening his eyes, he knows. It would explain and he would see. He would understand why the Herald had defied every standard of her race.

“You are surprised that this woman does not meet your expectations?” Wisdom asks, incredulous.

“An oversimplification. I wish to understand why she is different,” he insists. “Is it so strange? Humans are brutish, lethallin, and they see the Fade as black and white. They believe a spirit is but a demon in the making, waiting to be corrupted so it can find a vessel and cross the Veil to wreak havoc upon the world. There is no fluidity to their thought processes, no considerations of the consequences to their shortsightedness—”

“How is she different?” Wisdom interrupts, stopping him short.

What could he say? Could he tell it that the Herald had had a spirit healer’s hands, uncalloused from wielding a battle staff? Might he disclose that he knows she had owned a journal filled with her musings, her drawings of herbs, and pressed plants? Perhaps he could mention that she had blanched when she saw the Templars roaming the Hinterlands, but had instead fought through her fear to protect the refugees?

No. Irrelevant.

Now her body rests under the snow alongside the corrupted husks of Templars. A willing sacrifice on her part, so long as others lived instead. Part of him curses her recklessness, but most of him admires her bravery.

“She loved poetry,” he says, at last.

He has half a mind to slip away through the mountains once he wakes. Her death ensures that he has no Anchor, no orb, and no plan. When he is alone, he can brainstorm how to overcome these new obstacles.

Before Wisdom can reply, a cold winter wind brushes his skin, and he shivers. In the mortal realm, someone is shaking his arm and whispering his name. “I will see you soon, lethallin,” Wisdom promises as the library fades around him. Solas wakes up to see the Seeker’s tired face above him.

“Solas. How are you with healing magic?”

“Adequate,” he replies, and the Seeker nods.

“It will do,” she declares. “The Herald has been found.”

At first, Solas thinks that she perhaps refers to the body—but then her words register. A dead woman requires no healing magic. His heart beats harder and he nods, sitting up and pulling on an extra tunic to combat the icy winds outside.

The Revered Mother sits beside the Herald, tucking blankets around her body. The Herald is still, her eyes closed, her face pale, and her lips nearly blue. Her armor is a wet pile in the corner. “I will need the space,” he tells the Mother, who nods and leaves after another moment. Solas settles beside the Herald, summoning a few lights to ease his eyesight. When the tent glows golden, he takes her Anchored hand in his own.

He checks her pulse. Erratic and weak. She does not shiver under the blankets, either. Her breathing is wet and raspy.

None of which are good signs.

Solas warms his hands. He clasps her Anchored hand in one and rests the other over her torso. Carefully, he heats the blankets, then peel them away from her skin. Her torso is a mottle of bruises—thorough examination reveals two cracked ribs—and there is a large handprint above her sprained wrist.

The bruises are already fading, in part because of the healing potion they must have given her, but no potion can fix broken bones unless they are set. Solas works until he is exhausted, keeping an eye on the dimly glowing Anchor the entire time. When her ribs are set and on the path to proper healing, he sits back and rubs his temples.

His efforts have drained himself of mana. But the Herald will live, and the Anchor is intact. It still has some hope of recovery. Truly, the occasion is nothing short of a miracle—or a testament to the Herald’s willpower. It makes him think of a poem, and he smiles slightly. “There is no greater strength on earth, than the heart’s strength of will,” he whispers to her.

He pulls the pile of blankets back up to her chin and tucks the edges under her.

“Are you tucking me in?” she asks, her eyes still closed.

He pulls his hands away and places them in his lap, quickly as though burned. Surely he had not—he would have noticed if she was awake. Her breathing had been too deep, too steady, to indicate anything but unconsciousness. Setting her ribs would have been painful for anyone. “You are awake,” he says, and she smiles, rather lazily.

“Sera gave me a painkiller potion. I think it’s just water and elfroot,” she says. “I can’t feel my toes.”

“That is the hypothermia, Herald.”

“Huh. That makes sense.” She shifts, drawing her legs up to her stomach and curling onto her side. Her hair is wet from snow, and her lips are still blue. But she is shivering, now. It is progress. He almost stands up, but she whispers his name, catching him off-guard. “What was that thing you said? About hearts?”

“There is no greater strength on earth than the heart’s strength of will,” he recites. “It is… an old poem. One I have carried with me for many years.”

Her grin is wide, triumphant, and her cheeks dimple. He had known she had dimples, of course, but this is the first time he truly notices it. “I knew you had a poet’s heart,” she declares, with a small laugh. “I _knew_ it.”

“There are more important things to focus on, Herald,” he reminds her, but he cannot stop his lips from twitching in amusement. For the past two months, ever since they had recited the same poem, she has been needling him for his favorite poems. He had only just discouraged her enough to leave the matter alone—and now he knows that his slip has re-energized her.

It is a necessary thing, to keep his distance from these shadows, lest he grow attached to them and his plan grows harder. But her smile is—she has never been anything but sincere in the time he has known her.

She sobers at his words. “I know. Haven’s gone. We have no base. We’re stuck in the mountains. Everyone is going to look to me for a solution.” Her smile is bitter, more teeth than joy. “And I’m going to have to tell them that I don’t have a damn clue what to do. The mages could probably heat the air—but we can’t conjure food from nothing.”

“If I may offer a suggestion?”

She curls into a tighter ball, and her teeth chatter. Solas summons what mana he has recovered and heats his hands, placing them on her waist and rubbing up and down, spreading heat through her body. It would not do for him to save her life, only to have her succumb to the cold.

She shudders, sighs, and closes her eyes. “Oh, that’s—that’s nice. Thank you. What’s your idea?”

“Before you were found, I slept, and consulted spirits, to see if they might have any knowledge that could aid us. I discovered a place, a fortress large enough to house the Inquisition’s forces. It is old, but still habitable. If you think it is worth the journey…”

“Let’s do it,” she says, immediately. “Where is it?”

Solas smiles. “Scout to the north.”

She nods and opens her eyes. He makes to stand up, but her hand emerges from the blanket to seize his wrist. “Solas,” she says. When he meets her gaze, she smiles. “Thank you.”

He inclines his head, and she releases him. When he emerges from the tent, he takes his staff and leaves the camp. He does not go far—only the distance required to put space between himself and the humans. He leans against his staff, examining the Frostbacks’ peaks, wondering how Skyhold has fared after all these long years.

His thoughts are drawn away by the sound of singing behind him. Solas takes his staff and warms himself against the cold once more before he sets off for the makeshift camp. The song grows louder, a beautiful melody—it only takes him a moment to recall it as a part of the Chant these humans sing. He can clearly recall the services the Revered Mother held in the mornings, as a way to soothe the fears of the faithful.

He arrives in the middle of the chorus, and to his shock, he sees her standing outside her tent, staring at the crowd that has gathered. His brows furrow as the humans kneel before their Herald. It is a familiar sight—he remembers Elgar’nan standing before his generals, victorious, the Forgotten Ones vanquished at last.

But this woman is not an Evanuris. Any action on her part will be unnecessary, in the end. Her name will be forgotten in history by the time he reshapes the world to its proper state. But he can place his faith in her; the miracle of her survival proves that much.

She will secure him the orb. She will keep the Anchor safe, at least until he gathers enough power to take it from her.

She will be the key to the world’s salvation.

 

 

 

Skyhold has fared worse than he feared. The Elvhen mosaics and windows are gone, replaced by Ferelden imagery. The roof crumbles. Moss loosens the stone to a dangerous degree. Most of the wooden beams that supported the upper floors are rotted through.

Worst of all, the magics that protect the fortress—the reason the air is breathable and the land is warm enough for a garden—sleep so deeply they do not even stir at the humans’ arrival. Once, Solas could have reawakened the wards with a gesture, but a simple probe reveals that rousing them will be a long, arduous process.

Haven’s survivors live in tents for the first few weeks, as the Commander’s men secure passes through the mountains and the Ambassador finds caravans willing to trade. Solas gives himself headaches while he stands on the battlements, alone, and secretly coaxes the old power from its slumber.

Gradually, the magics return, and the castle becomes more habitable. The snow and ice hard-packed onto the stone thaw, then melt into trickles of water. The ground softens from solidity and becomes fertile enough for a garden. Wind no longer whistles through Skyhold to cut to the bones of the fortress’s new inhabitants.

When he finishes the penultimate bout of necessary spellwork, Solas sits on the battlement and rests his head against a parapet. He does not even have the mana to heat his fingers so he can ease the migraine that pounds inside his skull.

“I am not so _weak_ ,” he hisses. Yet when he tries to summon _some_ warmth, his fingers only grow colder and his head throbs with pain.

Disgraceful. Mythal would shudder to see him in such a state.

He forces himself to his feet and shields his eyes against the sun, examining the shadows that move through the courtyard. He had spotted the Herald making her rounds before, but now she is nowhere to be seen.

He re-enters the rotunda, the room he has unofficially claimed for himself, and blinks when he sees her sitting on a couch. Neither the Herald nor the couch had been there when he left. She holds a book in her arms, and she looks up when she enters. “Solas! There you are!”

“Herald,” he greets, cautiously. She stands up and grins.

“Look what I found in the maaarket!” she sing-songs. Solas glances at the title. _The Thedosian Masters: A Collection_. It is a thick book, with dozens of names printed on the back. The Herald’s grin widens and she taps the front cover. “Now we can start recommending poems to each other.”

“I hope there are some poets from my homeland in that,” the Tevinter mage calls from the library. “I don’t expect it does, of course. You Southerners wouldn’t see true art if it introduced itself as such.”

The Herald gasps, placing her hand over her heart. “Dorian, are you saying Tevinter nobles have time for poetry? Aren’t they too busy scheming and laughing nefariously?”

“Why, my dear, my countrymen compose a poem every day before the evening virgin sacrifice,” the mage quips.

“We don’t have a book of Tevinter poetry,” she admits, apologetic. “I could talk to Josephine—”

“ _You_ will—? No, I think not, your puppy eyes aren’t nearly as effective as you think they are. _I_ will talk to Josephine, and the state of this library will be just a bit more bearable.”

The mage disappears. Solas runs his fingertip over the book, tracing the gilt-edged letters. The Herald looks back at him and shifts her weight, the edges of her smile tinged with nervousness. “We don’t actually have to recommend poems to each other,” she says. “I just thought you’d like it. It’s a gift.”

A gift? He looks up at that, frowning, utterly bemused by the creature before him.

He had humored her whenever she approached him with one of her many questions. Other than that, he has made no outward effort to talk to her. She is an Andrastian, a Circle mage, and a human above all—ignorant of the world and the abhorrent state of this reality. She had surprised him, yes, with her compassion toward the refugees and her decision to accept the mages as full allies. Yet her irrational fear of Cole and spirits has soured any friendship between them.

So this gesture is—unexpected. Another piece added to the puzzle of her being, and yet he is no closer to envisioning a complete picture. If anything, it only obfuscates the picture further.

Yet her sentiment is… appreciated. “Thank you,” he says, sincerely.

Her eyes light up with her smile. “I hope you like it. I haven’t looked at it yet, so if the poetry is terrible, apologies in advance.”

Solas shares her smile, though his reasons for it are not as sweet as hers. He fully expects that he will thumb through the book and find nothing but trite, dull verse. The themes will be overly blunt, and the words will carry no nuance.

He sets the book on the couch. When he gathers enough ambient mana, he sets out for the battlements.

He fully awakens the old magics this time, at the cost of a headache and a chilled sweat on his body. The absence of mana rolls his stomach like a sickness, and he has to turn away from the mountainside to catch his breath. As he rests, he sees a crowd gathering. The Spymaster stands on the first platform, a sword in her hands. Solas debates on whether or not he should leave the battlements—and then he sees the Herald climb the steps to stand before the armored woman. The Seeker is right behind her.

He is too far away to hear the conversation between the Herald and the Seeker. But the intent of the gathering is clear when the Herald takes the sword from the Spymaster and holds it into the air. Somehow, she manages to keep the blade aloft, despite its near-comical size in comparison to her body.

On the wind, he hears the Commander shout. “Your leader! Your Herald! Your Inquisitor!” His words are joined by a deafening roar from the humans. In that moment, Haven’s survivors are victorious, their Herald a vision of triumph over great odds.

Solas watches, his pains forgotten, and wonders why the scene is so reminiscent of Mythal’s coronation. There is nothing alike between the two situations. Mythal had been resplendent in a gown sewn through with diamonds, and she had crowned herself at Elgar’nan’s side. The newly-named Inquisitor wears a thick coat to combat the mountain cold, and she accepts the title only at behest of her followers.

But there is something… noble in her carriage. Something that reminds him of the People that had once walked the earth, before his actions had ruined them nearly beyond repair.

He banishes the thought from his mind. She is a shadow, like the rest of them. To delude himself into thinking otherwise would be—disastrous. He need only bide his time until she can deliver him the orb. Once he has it, he can free her of her burden, as thanks for her aid. It will be a poor show of gratitude, indeed, but it is the only thing he can offer her.

He thinks of the rotunda, and its bare walls.

Well—perhaps not the _only_ thing.

After the ceremony, she finds him in the rotunda, sketching out some ideas for the fresco. She sits beside him and watches him work for a quiet moment. Solas acknowledges her with a nod, but does not speak until he finishes the barest outline for the first mural. “Inquisitor,” he says.

She laughs. “I need to get used to that, don’t I?” she says, then shakes her head. “Cassandra, Varric, Bull and Cole are coming with me tomorrow morning to finish up in the Hinterlands. Are you interested?”

“Of course.” Solas nods, and she leaves the rotunda with a cheerful smile. He watches her leave, then sets aside his sketches. He will need to prepare for the journey. There is still work to be done in the Hinterlands, though they had completed most tasks during their prior excursion; it is likely there will be little else to do.

His gaze strays to the book of poems, resting on the other end of the settee.

At least it will occupy his time.

 

 

 

His suspicions are correct: with the rebel mages and the rogue Templars gone, there are only mundane tasks to complete. When they arrive at the Crossroads, they find dozens of burnt refugees, and an Inquisition soldier promptly informs them of a dragon that’s been making trouble in the area.

“Boss, tell me we can fight it,” says the Qunari, his single eye gleaming. Solas resists the urge to roll his eyes. In many ways, the Qunari are even more savage than the humans—this one’s thirst for violence does not surprise him in the least.

The Inquisitor ignores him. “Was the area evacuated?” she asks the scout.

“Yes, Your Worship. She’s been nesting for the past week, but she stole a whole lotta druffalo from the farms. We’ll need more meat for the refugees.”

She nods. “All right. Solas, you and I will stay here to treat the burn victims. Cassandra, Bull, you help those soldiers clean out the mercenary base. Reports say they’re the same guys raiding the roads up north. Cole and Varric, you help the Sargent find those mage supply caches. All right?”

“Gotcha, boss. Can we fight the dragon, though?”

“Once these refugees are cared for,” she agrees, and the Qunari grins. They split up their respective tasks, and together the Inquisitor and Solas approach the Chantry laysisters. It does not take long to convince the women to allow them to help, and soon Solas sits under a tent, healing burns and brewing healing potions. Many people bless him in the Maker’s name, but many more shrink from him, eschewing magic for herbal remedies instead. Solas bites back his frustration and moves on to the next patient.

During a break, when a Chantry sister with an affinity for overprescribing elfroot insists on replacing him, Solas settles outside and takes the poetry book out of his pack. Another Chantry sister comes by with a lunch of ram’s meat slices and an apple, which he takes with a polite nod of thanks.

As Solas flips through the book, the Inquisitor’s voice catches his attention. He looks up to see her sitting beside a small boy, perhaps ten, no older than twelve. They are not inside the tent; the boy’s head is tilted back, as if he is enjoying the sunshine. The child has brown hair, and his leg is broken.

“I hear mages fight demons,” the boy says. His hands are fisted white in the grass. It no longer looks as if he is enjoying the sun’s heat.

“We do,” the Inquisitor agrees, with a ready smile. She splints his leg and knots the gauze above his knee.

“Is it scary?” the child asks, eying her warily.

“Very scary,” she says, nodding. Her hands are bloody to her wrists, and several strands of hair have fallen from her bun. “I remember my first demon. It was a pride demon, very big, and it wanted to hurt me very much. But I told it to leave me alone, and eventually, it did.”

The boy tilts his head, considering. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

She smiles, and the tips of her fingers glow golden. The boy whines as she heals the broken bone, but other than that he lets no noise escape him. When her magic subsides, she wipes her hands on the grass and clasps his shoulder. “You were so brave, Marco,” she praises, with a bright smile. The boy returns it.

“Mama said I needed to be brave,” he says.

“You’re making her proud,” the Inquisitor assures him.

Solas watches her for a moment, studying the tired lines of her face. When the conversation between her and the boy falls silent, he looks down at the page he had chosen. It is in the middle of the book, and there is a ribbon inside the pages to mark one’s place. Solas untucks the ribbon, sets it in the crease between the pages, and reads the poem on the left side.

_Art thou pale for weariness_

_Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,  
Wandering companionless_

_Among the stars that have a different birth,_

_And ever changing, like a joyless eye  
That finds no object worth its constancy?_

Solas stills, setting his lunch aside. He wipes his hands clean on his leggings and lifts the book higher, reviewing the words. As he runs his fingers over the page, a weight settles on his chest, solid and stationary. He stares at the poem, astonished.

This—this must be a fluke. A solitary diamond in the proverbial rough. Yes, that is it.

He flips to the next page, intent on forgetting about the human poem that has shaken his soul.

The Inquisitor soon joins him. “Anything catch your eye?” she asks, nibbling on her lunch.

Solas shifts the book so it is half in his lap and half in hers, and points to his current reading. She shifts closer, reading the poem over his shoulder.

 _Behold, the grave of a wicked man,_  
_And near it, a stern spirit._  
_There came a drooping maid with violets,_  
_But the spirit grasped her arm._  
_“No flowers for him,” he said._  
_The maid wept:_  
_“Ah, I loved him.”_  
_But the spirit, grim and frowning:_  
_“No flowers for him.”_  
_Now, this is it —_  
_If the spirit was just,_  
_Why did the maid weep?_

“Oh,” she murmurs, and looks at him. “Well? What do you think? Was the spirit at fault, or the maid?”

“The maid,” he declares, unhesitating. “Emotions disrupt reason. It is likely her love for the man blinded her to his true character. The spirit of justice, however, is a neutral party; it could look on the man’s deeds with clear eyes. If it thought that refusing her to see the man’s grave was just, then it was.”

She pulls away, her eyebrows rising.

“Do you disagree?” he asks.

“Yes. We don’t know that the man was wicked all his life; what if he’d committed a crime early in his youth, and that was the crime the spirit judged him for? What if the maid’s love for the wicked man moved him to disavow his ways? If he sincerely regretted his actions, was the spirit right to keep the maid from visiting his grave?”

Solas looks at her, his brow furrowing. “I understand your point, but all of your concerns are speculative. We have only what is in the poem. As the pure embodiment of Justice, the spirit was in the best position to decide the wicked man’s fate. In this case, the fate was to have a lonely grave.”

“You don’t think spirits can change over time, like people? I mean, what if this Justice had shifted into Vengeance by the time the maid came along?”

“It…” he falters. Such things had occurred prior to the Veil—as spirits who roamed the earth were exposed to new situations, their natures changed to reflect the experiences—yet he had not seen anything like it since the Veil cleaved the Fade and the mortal realm. “Such things are impossible, theoretically. And the author gives no indication of that possibility.”

“Really? If the spirit was in the right, why would the author even _pose_ the question at the end—”

“Inquisitor!”

She stops, looks up; the Seeker rides in on a horse, her face flushed. The warrior clutches the bridle of another horse in her hand. “The dragon—she flew over our group and destroyed several watchtowers. Bull is at the camp nearest her nest. We must kill her, before she brings more chaos to this area.”

The Inquisitor shuts the book and shoves it into Solas’s pack. She grabs both of their staves, tossing him his own and strapping hers to her back. When she is ready, she climbs on behind the Seeker as Solas mounts his own horse. She wraps her arms around the Seeker’s middle and grins at him. “I’ll rec you something soon! Promise!”

Solas does not have the chance to reply; the Seeker snaps her reins, and the horse takes off at a canter. They ride into a flat expanse of land with patches of grass blackened or aflame. Soldiers are working together to keep the flames from spreading. They cheer as the Seeker and the Inquisitor ride past. The Inquisitor laughs, raising her hand, and the Seeker leads their horses into a narrow path framed by the Hinterlands’ strange rock formations.

The other three members of their party are in a camp. The dwarf polishes his weapon, and the Qunari is giving a few experimental swings of his axe. Cole sits on the rocks, his foot tapping against the air.

The Qunari roars out a laugh when he sees them. “Boss! Glad you made it! She’s in there. Hasn’t moved at all.” He nods to a narrow corridor, framed by stone. The smell of smoke scorches Solas’s nostrils.

“And we _have_ to kill her?” the Inquisitor asks.

“She has already eaten livestock and destroyed the watchtowers that keep the refugees safe,” the Seeker points out. “What is to stop her from preying on the populace?”

Something in the Inquisitor’s face falls, but she nods, blowing a strand of black hair out of her eyes.

“All right. Let’s go kill a dragon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> The Old Astronomer to His Apprentice, Sarah Williams  
> The Heart, Bill Simmons  
> Art Thou Pale for Weariness, Percy Bysshe Shelley  
> Behold, The Grave of a Wicked Man, Stephen Crane


	2. Chapter 2

The high dragon is a sight to behold. She is a magnificent creature, power incarnate. Solas sees her, and he understands why Mythal had had such great admiration for the beasts.

But the dragon is _vicious_. Already, the Inquisitor has had to heal him twice to because he could not avoid the dragon’s flames quickly enough. The warriors have fared even worse.

“Hatchlings on the right!” the dwarf calls. Solas turns, only to watch a crossbow bolt lodge into a dragonling’s throat. It keens and collapses, taking a sibling down with it. A fire glyph underneath the remaining dragonlings sets them alight.

Solas does not even have time to thank the dwarf for the warning; he casts a barrier over the Qunari and the Seeker as the dragon raises her hind leg to kick savagely at them. The force of it pushes the Qunari into the nearby rocks, but he gets up and flashes a thumbs-up toward them before running back into the fight.

The dwarf grunts as he shoots a bolt at the dragon. It lodges in a chink in her scales. She gives a roar of pain and anger, almost drowning out the dwarf’s next words. “Hey, Firefly! This fight’d be easier if Chuckles and I weren’t the only ones giving ranged support, don’t you think?”

The Inquisitor laughs and dives for a rock as the dragon spits fire toward them. Solas and the dwarf join her. He can feel the flames’ heat on his face, but the woman beside him is mostly unfazed. “Maybe I’d be able to, if I didn’t have to heal a certain _someone_ because he insists on backflipping off of tall objects!” she calls.

The dwarf grins, unapologetic, and reloads his crossbow. “Inquisitor!” the Seeker shouts. Solas looks over the rock to see blood pouring down a wound in the Seeker’s armor, gashed open from the dragon’s claws. The Inquisitor lifts her hand, and green light engulfs the Seeker’s frame, knitting the worst of the wounds together. Cassandra raises her shield in acknowledgement and charges back into the fray.

Smoke coils at the center of the dragon’s spine; it clears to reveal Cole sitting between its spikes, driving daggers between the scales. “Be careful, Kid!” the dwarf calls. Cole disappears again.

The dragon roars in pain, raising her wings, and Solas tenses, knowing what is about to happen. The Inquisitor vaults over the rock and runs toward the dragon, screaming curses with every step. “Shit, shitshitshit don’t you _fucking_ dare you overgrown lizard—”

Her swearing doesn’t stop the dragon. The suction from the beast’s wings makes the Inquisitor lose her balance and roll across the grass. Solas Fade-steps to a front leg, and the dwarf clings to the rock, trying to ride out the windstorm.

“Aim for the wings!” Solas calls, scorching a patch of scales underneath the wingbone. The entire group takes up the strategy. Soon the creature’s wings are burnt and torn, utterly ruined. When it is evident the dragon will not be able to repeat her trick, the Inquisitor and Solas Fade-step back to their sanctuary.

The fight is—thrilling. Blood rushes in his ears, and the world feels sharp around him. The blood on his leg from a dragonling’s claws, the banter exchanged between his companions, the smell of smoke in the air: all of it makes the world feel _real._

Once the wings and the dragonlings are gone, the high dragon does not last long. In her death throes, she raises her wings in a last-ditch attempt to flee. When she cannot rise more than a few feet, she plummets to the ground. The impact sends a ring of dust into the air. Cole appears from thin air and shoves his daggers into the space between two scales. The dragon whines, and her eyes slip shut as blood spurts from her artery.

“Dead,” Cole declares. For a heartbeat, the world holds its breath.

The Inquisitor breaks the momentary silence with a whoop. She drops her staff and raises her hands to clutch her head, staring with wide eyes at the dragon corpse. She doesn’t seem to notice the blood staining her armor. “We did it,” she says, and laughs. “We killed a dragon—an actual, real life _high dragon!_ Holy _shit!_ ”

Her joy is infectious. Solas wipes the sweat from his brow and joins in her laughter. He takes a moment to mourn the dragon’s loss, but he cannot deny how his body thrums with elation. He feels more alive right now than he has since awakening.

He locks gazes with the Inquisitor, and smiles.

Their group slowly gathers. Cole is unharmed but for the dragon’s blood that coats his shirt; the Seeker favors her left side, and has discarded her weapons to sit on the ground; the Qunari is covered in so much blood Solas cannot determine which belongs to the oxman and which belongs to the dragon.

The dwarf grins at him. “Well, Chuckles? How was that for your first dragon fight? Holding up?”

Solas laughs again. “Indeed, Master Tethras.”

“She awoke, and she needed to feed her children,” Cole says. “Rage and pain, agony in her scales, they killed her hatchlings. She just wanted a home.”

“Aw, shit,” the Qunari grumbles. “Now I feel bad. Thanks, kid.”

Solas narrows his eyes, preparing a retort in defense of the spirit. But the Inquisitor beats him to a response. “Cole, she was hurting people,” the Inquisitor says, gently. There is no levity in her expression anymore. “She was killing them. She wasn’t going to move on her own, not without a fight.”

Cole nods. “I know. That’s why my knives went where they were needed. She didn’t feel any pain, not at the end.”

The group’s mirth subdues to silence, of which the Inquisitor takes advantage to check and heal injuries. When she gets to Solas, he almost waves her away, almost insists on healing himself. Yet the ache in his temples is on the cusp of a migraine, so he allows her to tend to the puckered gash on his leg. “What else hurts?” she asks, when the task is done.

“Do not concern yourself,” says Solas. She arches an eyebrow. He sighs, the sound of it tainted by his rising irritation. He lifts a hand to massage his throbbing temple, doing his best to ignore how his low reserves of mana roil his stomach. The moment he returns to camp, he will retire, and perhaps his migraine will lessen. “Truly, Inquisitor—”

She pushes his hand away and presses ice-tipped fingertips to the sides of his head. It eases the ache at once, and Solas cannot stop himself from closing his eyes. He sighs, barely resisting the urge to lean into her soothing touch.

She pulls away far too quickly for his liking. Solas opens his eyes; the concern in her expression takes him aback. “We’ll get you a lyrium potion when we get back to camp, okay?” she says, voice soft. “Sorry I didn’t notice earlier.”

“My thanks,” he says, standing. He does not mention that he will not drink the lyrium. It would only lead to questions, and he is not in the mood to dodge such inquiries.

At camp, the Inquisitor finds a requisitions officer and brings Solas a lyrium potion. She smiles when he thanks her, then leaves to accompany the Qunari and the soldiers to see to the beast’s remains. Cole sits in the grass and listens to the silence. Solas abandons the other two to their bickering. The shade of his tent is a welcome respite from the world, and in a matter of minutes Solas finds himself in Wisdom’s library.

Far too soon, it is over.

A clatter pulls him from the Fade, and he looks outside to see the Inquisitor’s horse lugging a cart behind it. The cart contains piles of dragon hide and bone, each of which is wrapped like a gift, with a bow on top and all. A full suit of armor is also inside. Some parts of it are wet from bile and blood, but it is not rusted, and of significantly better quality than anything the Inquisition currently owns.

“Cassandra!” the Inquisitor greets, with a wide, innocent grin. “Look what we found in her stomach! C’mon, you _have_ to try it on!”

The Seeker makes a disgusted noise, but once the armor is cleaned, she is persuaded to take the suit and change in her tent. The dwarf and Cole are gone—off to find their dinner, presumably. Knowing he will not get any more sleep until nightfall, Solas leaves his tent. The Inquisitor spots him and waves him over. “How’s your headache?”

“Much improved, thank you.”

She beams and returns to the cart. She rummages for a moment, then straightens, procuring a twisted mass of wood still stained by the dragon’s innards. It is gnarled at the tip, with darkened patches of color in some spots and termite holes in others. Her smile is bright as she asks, “How are you at fire magic?”

He excels at fire magic, prefers it more than any other branch save spirit magic. But if he tells her such, she will insist on giving the thing to him. Solas shakes his head and steps away. “I believe the First Enchanter is more adept at such magics than I.”

“Okay, but Viv—don’t tell her I called her that—Viv’s gonna hate this thing. It’s so ugly.”

“It… is homely,” he agrees, and she laughs so hard she snorts.

“Just trust me,” she says, handing it to him.

He takes the staff, doing his best to hide his reluctance. At once, he feels potent power at his fingertips, the faint song of magic appealing to the vestiges of mana in his veins. He gives a few experimental swings—it is lighter than his current weapon, and the Fade does not resist his call so much when he channels it through the wood. With frequent use, the staff should aid him in easier manipulation of the Veil.

Solas straightens and regards the stave in a new light. He of all people should have known better than to judge based on appearance—he could carve the wood, polish its ragged ends, add a focusing crystal… with work, it would become a beautiful weapon.

No matter its appearance, this staff is far superior to the one he currently uses. And it is her second gift in as many weeks. He has done nothing to earn her friendship, and they have nothing in common. She is human, the representative of everything which ground his people into dust. Yet she still attempts to get close to him, and he cannot fathom why.

“What do you think?” she asks, clasping her hands in front of her. “I know it’s really ugly, but I picked it up, and I felt its power. I’m no good at fire magic—I’m no good at any offensive magic, really, and you haven’t had anything—”

“Inquisitor,” he says, softly. It hushes her. She stares at him, her eyes dark and hopeful in the fading light. Solas looks down at the gift in his hands and half-smiles. “You are very kind. Thank you. Truly, I did not expect such a gift.” After a beat, he continues, “And you give yourself too little credit. I have not seen such skilled healing as yours in many years.”

He runs his hand over the staff, feeling its rough texture under his palm. Perhaps he has been remiss in his attempts to distance himself. Perhaps he will be more likely to solve the mystery of her being if she considers him a friend. And once his curiosity is sated, he can pull away from this broken world once again.

She smiles. “Is your pack in your tent? I’d like to read some poems.”

“By all means,” he says, nodding, and she leaves. While she searches for the volume of poetry, the Qunari arrives, accompanied by Cole and the dwarf. The Qunari has a ram slung over his shoulders, and Cole carries an armful of herbs.

The dwarf grins. “We’ve got the goods! Who wants to cook?”

No one volunteers, so it is the Qunari who offers to dress and prepare the ram. Solas sits in front of the dead fire and stokes it with a gesture, and the dwarf and Cole leave in search of fresh firewood. The Inquisitor returns with the book of poetry in hand. She thanks the oxman for making dinner, and he replies with a flippant “Hope you like spices, Boss.”

They settle into quiet, then, listening to the fire crackles and the steady slide of the Qunari’s knife against the ram’s flesh. The Seeker emerges from her tent without the armor, but she announces that it is better than what she currently owns; soon after, the Inquisitor changes into a loose shirt and leggings, then returns to the _Thedosian Masters_.

The quiet is broken by the Seeker. “Inquisitor, what are you reading?”

The Inquisitor glances down at her book, then back to the warrior across the firepit. “This? It’s called _The Thedosian Masters: A Collection._ It’s poetry.”

“Poetry?” the Seeker repeats, her voice a note higher. “I… who gave you a book of poems?”

The Inquisitor smiles, her cheeks dimpling. “I didn’t know you liked poems, Cass!”

The Seeker turns red. “I—poems are— _no!_ ”

It is hard to see as the day wanes, but the warrior looks redder in the firelight. The Qunari chuckles under his breath while he massages spices into the ram fat. The Inquisitor’s grin widens, and she runs a hand through her hair. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I love poems,” she says. “Do you know the… what’s it called, that banned Tevinter one…”

“Banned?” Solas repeats. The Inquisitor winks at him, and something twists in his stomach at the sight of it.

“Carmenum di Amatus,” the Seeker supplies, flatly.

“I have never heard of such a poem,” says Solas. “Why was it banned?”

“Blasphemy,” says the Seeker; that is all it takes to ignite Solas’s curiosity.

When he looks at the Inquisitor, her dimpled grin is cheeky. She bookmarks her page and sets the book down, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists. She stares at Solas as she says, “Do you want to hear it _with_ the effect, or _without_ the effect?”

The Seeker groans. “Inquisitor—”

“The effect makes it ten times better,” supplies the Qunari. Solas cannot stop himself from sending the oxman a startled look. The very idea of a Qunari knowing any poetry shocks him more than the idea that humans write their own… _passable_ verse.

“Dorian could make it a _thousand_ times better,” says the Inquisitor, sharing a laugh with the massive warrior near her. The Seeker is scarlet, her lips clamped shut, and she offers no further commentary. When Solas looks at her, she only gives a small, defeated shrug.

“I will hear it with the effect, then,” Solas declares. The Inquisitor whoops at once—Solas has the sudden urge to retract his words the moment he sees a mischievous gleam in her eye. But he does not move as she stands up and clears her throat, placing a hand over her heart.

Her voice turns high and breathy. “On aching branch do blossoms grow, the wind a hallowed breath. It carries the scent of honeysuckle, sweet as the lover’s kiss.”

She sways in place, lifting her other hand to press the back of her wrist against her forehead. She tilts her head back, parting her lips, mimicking a woman about to swoon. “It brings the promise of more tomorrows, of sighs, and whispered bliss!”

Solas cannot stop his faint smile. When he glances at the Seeker, the warrior is glaring at the grass, her blush no less intense. The Qunari grins as he prepares their meal.

The Inquisitor sighs after _bliss_ and lifts her hand to undo her messy braid. The movement of her arms makes her shirt ride up, exposing a sliver of pale midriff painted golden-orange by the firelight. Solas does not even realize how his gaze idly traces her skin until her shirt conceals it once more. When he notices his behavior, he clenches his hands until his knuckles turn white.

Once her hair is let down, she pauses, cocking her head. Solas spots twin beauty marks he never noticed before, under her left eye, almost on the apple of her cheek. With her face framed by her loose curls and lit by firelight, one could almost consider her beauti—

She looks away, toward the other companions, and the inexplicable spell breaks. Solas breathes again. She frowns and places a palm on her hip, using the other to rake through her hair. “Uh. _Uh._ Anyone know how the rest of it goes?”

It is not either of the warriors who answer her, but the dwarf. “Are we interrupting something?”

Solas looks over his shoulder to see the dwarf and Cole standing only twenty yards away. They close the distance to the campsite, and promptly deposit their stash of twigs and stray branches into the fire. It flares at once, dying down moments later.

As the dwarf sits beside the Inquisitor, the Seeker turns to Solas, her next words breaking the momentary lull. “Solas, if you do not mind me asking, what do you believe in?”

The muted conversation between his companions falls silent as they turn their attention to him. The dwarf cracks a smile. “Yeah, Chuckles. What motivates the man underneath the quiet apostate? What tragic past fuels you?”

The Inquisitor spares him the need to answer. “Does _every_ leading character need a depressing backstory, Varric?” she asks, rolling her eyes.

The dwarf feigns outrage, though his smirk belies his amusement. “Of course, Firefly! They’re what make heroes. And villains, occasionally.”

The Qunari says nothing, but his eye is sharp on the group as he cooks the ram, its meat absorbing the juices from the spiced fat. Solas turns back to the Seeker. “To answer your question—cause and effect. Wisdom as its own reward, and the inherent right of all free willed people to exist.”

The Seeker blinks. “That is not what I meant.”

“I know.” Solas sighs and tilts his head to the sky. It is twilight now, stripes of color blending the bright blue of day with the darker indigo of night. “I believe the elven gods existed, as did the old gods of Tevinter. But I do not think any of them were gods, unless you expand the definition of the word to the point of absurdity. I appreciate the idea of your Maker, a god that does not need to prove his power.” He thinks of Falon’Din, who had slaughtered an entire city because they had not knelt before him, and cannot stop his frown. “I wish more such gods felt the same.”

“You have seen much sadness in your journeys, Solas,” says the Seeker. He almost smiles. “Following the Maker might offer some hope.”

Solas shakes his head. The warrior’s beliefs are simple, yes, but he cannot bring himself to admonish her for it. _Put your faith in the Maker and all will be well_ is an innocent, passive viewpoint, one which thousands of these creatures cling to as a child with their favored plush. He will not dash such faith. His hands have already destroyed so much.

“I have people, Seeker,” he says, not voicing his thoughts. “The greatest triumphs and tragedies this world has known can all be traced to people.”

The dwarf whistles. “Mind if I use that line?”

His cheerful tone pulls Solas from the cusp of melancholy. He pushes away the memories and re-focuses on the present. “Only if you can tell me what you believe in, child of Stone,” Solas replies. His gaze slides to the Inquisitor, but he does not voice his silent question.

Truly, it is her viewpoint in which he is most interested.

“Not curious about me?” the Qunari jokes.

“You believe in nothing, save the Qun,” Solas replies evenly. “I would not expect any complexities on _your_ part.”

The Inquisitor exchanges a disbelieving look with the dwarf. The Qunari’s lone eye narrows. Solas stares at him, and after several tense, silent moments, the oxman returns to his cooking with a muttered grumble. “O-kay,” says the Inquisitor. “Anyway. So. Beliefs, right? Varric, you want to go first?”

“You know, Firefly, I think I’ll let you take this one.”

“What do I believe in…” she muses. She stretches, and once again, Solas has a glimpse of her bare stomach. He looks away. “Well, springtime, for one. Laughter as the best medicine. Freedom to make one’s own choices, and love as the most powerful force this world knows.”

Solas feels his eyebrows rise. She sees his expression. “What?” she asks, shoulders straightening into a defensive posture.

“Admirable,” he admits, “if naïve.”

The Qunari grunts in agreement, and the dwarf pats her shoulder. “I gotta agree with Chuckles,” says the dwarf. “Love didn’t stop Kirkwall from going to shit.”

“Optimism is not naïveté,” argues the Inquisitor, though red spreads across her cheeks and down her slender throat. “Love brings out the best in people. Real love, I mean, not obsession or abuse or manipulation.”

Solas cannot stop his dismissive little laugh. “And can you define _real love_ , Inquisitor?”

“Can you?” she shoots back. “Can anyone?”

Her passion takes him aback. “A fair point,” he concedes, deciding not to push the topic. The atmosphere swells with tension. He stares at the Inquisitor, brows furrowed, mind working in an attempt to solve the enigma before him. She glares back, her black, depthless eyes blazing.

This time, he is the one who looks away first.

 

 

 

They spend their last day in the Hinterlands at the Crossroads. Cole had mentioned a lost druffalo, and the dwarf and the Seeker had offered to accompany him. While the Inquisitor plays tag and demonstrates her magic to fascinated children, and the Qunari lets other curious bystanders feel his horns, Solas reclines against his tree, re-reading _Art Thou Pale for Weariness._

A panicked shout captures his attention. He looks up at the same time the Inquisitor does; they lock gazes for an instant, and then the Inquisitor has her attention on a scout, red-faced from his sprint. “A rift, Your Worship!” he shouts.

His words darken the cheerful mood. Adults usher away children, and several villagers clump together, fear on their faces and worry on their tongues. The scout comes to a stop and struggles to catch his breath. “In the river, by the farms!”

“What?” the Inquisitor gasps. Solas puts away the book and stands up, grabbing his staff. The location the scout speaks of is only a half-mile from the Crossroads, and Inquisition forces are fighting bandits spotted by Alamarri ruins. Should any demons decide to move south, the refugees would be helpless. It is very likely there are already demons wandering the landscape unchecked.

The Qunari has already grabbed the reins of their grazing horses. There is no room for the Inquisitor behind the oxman, so she climbs behind Solas again, wrapping her arms around his torso and holding on tight. Solas hands her his staff and she binds it to her back, alongside her own.

They dismount several hundred feet from the rift, but Solas can still hear its crackling, much louder than the steady stream of the river. The Inquisitor tosses him his staff and the Qunari laughs as he unsheathes his greataxe.

When they finally reach top of the cliffs carved from the river and see the rift, three pride demons await them. One of them has already made it to land, its massive body turned toward the path that leads to the farms. “That one dies first,” she whispers. The Qunari hefts his axe and sprints toward the demon. Solas freezes the legs of the other two, barraging them with fireballs.

The Inquisitor lifts a hand toward the rift and frowns. “It’s out of range,” she says. “I need to get closer.”

Solas falters, glances at her. Surely she cannot mean—“We are outnumbered,” he snaps. “I will not let you run into danger headfirst.”

One of the pride demons breaks its ice shackles with a deafening roar. It wades ashore, its black eyes fixed on their lone warrior. The Inquisitor shouts a warning, and the Qunari curses as he maneuvers so he can keep both demons in sight. “He can’t hold them off himself,” she says.

“You know little to no offensive magic,” Solas counters, his voice raised to a near-shout. He ignites a fire glyph underneath one of the demons, but it does little to break through its armored flesh.

“I’ll be fine!” she insists. Before he can stop her, she Fade-steps down the path. She stops next to the riverbank, in the shadow of a tree; far too close to the Qunari and the demons for his liking. Solas swears and freezes the demons’ arms, ignoring the faint nausea that foretells a dangerous lack of mana.

The Inquisitor reaches for the rift, and the Anchor sparks as it makes a connection. Streams of green flow from her palm to the rift. He watches the ripped edges of the Veil inch closer together. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a pride demon throw a bolt of lightning at the Qunari. The oxman is too slow to dodge. Solas focuses his attention on the warrior, barraging the pride demons and wearing down their armors.

A swing from the Qunari’s axe proves too much for one, and it dissolves with an anguished roar. Its death song is so loud Solas almost doesn’t hear the Inquisitor’s cry of pain. He turns his head, and his heartbeat races at what he sees.

The third pride demon had waded from the river and reached the Inquisitor. The connection between rift and Anchor is severed, and the Inquisitor is on her back, trapped between the demon and the cliffstone behind her. The path at her side and the river on her right are both open, but if she runs, she will be in easy reach of the demon.

Solas can see her pale face, and he has never seen such _terror_.

She scrambles away from the demon, her eyes wide, her chest heaving as she begins to hyperventilate.

Solas glances at the oxman—the demon he battles has ripped his battleaxe away, and its clawed hands are raised for a heavy blow. The third demon’s laugh echoes in his bones; he looks at it once more, only to see it has spread its hands, electricity crackling between its fingers. The Inquisitor has not moved.

His body screams in protest when he casts a barrier over the warrior. His muscles burn as he drops his staff, gathers the Veil around himself, and Fade-steps. It takes a heartbeat to reach her—his hands wind underneath her knees, around her back, and lift her into his arms. He cannot stop his momentum in time, however, and when he finally staggers to a stop they are more than halfway across the river.

Solas releases the Inquisitor and falls to his knees, lifting his head to look at the rift above them. A pair of hands, long-fingered and clawed, reaches through the tear to pull the edges further apart. Somewhere, he can smell lightning and blood, but his head pulses so strongly the pain dampens every other sensation. The water laps at his neck and chin, wetting his lips. It is very cold.

Then the Inquisitor’s hands are around his shoulders, lifting him up and dragging him to the other shore. “Hang on, Solas!” she cries, and he wants to laugh. Neither of them have their staff; the Qunari is their last chance for survival. How can she hope to continue the fight?

The pride demon charges across the river, roaring its outrage; the Inquisitor turns around and stiffens, her fear paralyzing her once more. Solas sits up, clutching his head—when he reaches for the Fade, it refuses his call. His stunt has cost him the last of his mana, and the oxman is still preoccupied.

Somewhere, distant compared to the pain in his head, an animal bellows a challenge. A blur of brown stampedes past him, and a druffalo slams into the pride demon head-first. The Seeker is not far behind it. “Hang on, Boss!” shouts the dwarf.

A terror pulls itself from the rift, still a shapeless mass of green; the Seeker’s Smite evaporates it and drains Solas further. Bile rises in his throat and he manages to swallow it down. Despite the chill of the water, he feels overheated; the air prickles at his flushed skin. The Qunari emerges from his place on the other shore, his grey-blue skin painted scarlet from the numerous gashes across his torso. His injuries seem to spur him on, rather than deter him. “About damn time, Seeker!” he calls. “Decide to join in on the fun, eh?”

“I could not let you get _all_ of the experience,” the Seeker counters, to his roaring laughter.

The arrival of the other half of their party seems to rouse the Inquisitor from her terror. She shakes with her exhale, then lifts her hand toward the rift. Its sealing stuns the remaining demon enough that the warriors, the rogues, and the druffalo are enough to fell it.

When it is over, the Inquisitor falls to her knees and covers her face with her hands. Green smoke curls from nothing, and Cole emerges to kneel beside her. “Haggard, half-dead, but Harrowed. A sword above your chest, blade glinting in the moonlight, _it’s taking too long_.” He places a pale hand on her shoulder. “I would have stopped them. They should have waited longer.”

“Thank you, Cole,” whispers the Inquisitor. She laughs, but she does not lower her hands. Her shoulders shake.

Solas wonders if she cries, yet he cannot understand why she would. When his head does not feel ready to burst, Solas will inquire after her inaction. It had nearly cost them their lives.

“Inquisitor, are you well?” the Seeker calls. She and the oxman wade through the water to them. Solas sees the druffalo swim to the other side. It leaves the river and begins munching on spindleweed.

“I’m fine,” she says. She lowers her hands and looks at him, her eyes wide, and worried, and slightly red. “Solas—how are you?”

“I,” he grits out, but his head pounds, his world spins, and he cannot finish his sentence. She takes his hand, and the weakness abates at the touch of an ice-tipped finger to his brow. He closes his eyes. “I am unharmed, Inquisitor.”

He pulls away, but the heat of her palm still burns his skin.

When they reach their mounts, she hands him a lyrium potion. He thanks her and puts it into his horse’s pack, where it will be ignored and, tragically, crushed.

“All right, let’s get this big guy home,” says the Inquisitor, affectionately patting the druffalo. It snorts and ignores her. She smiles; it and her voice seem artificially upbeat. “And when that’s done, we can go back to Skyhold.”

Solas counts the hours.

 

 

 

They are mere miles away from Skyhold. The dwarf, the Inquisitor, and the Qunari have all put up a valiant effort to maintain some semblance of conversation; in the end, however, they, too, had succumbed to their weariness. Every member of the party stares ahead, silent as Skyhold draws near.

After an hour of blessed quiet, the Seeker speaks.

“Very well, Varric,” the she announces, in a tone that implies she has thought something over for a long while. “If you wish to know about men I have known, then I will tell you.”

The dwarf coughs. “Seeker, I wasn’t trying to…”

The Seeker squares her jaw. “You are right. I pried first, and fair is fair. Years ago, I knew a young mage named Regalyan. He was… dashing. Unlike any man I’d met. He died at the Conclave.”

The Inquisitor leans over and places a hand on the woman’s shoulder, murmuring soft words he cannot hear. The Seeker inclines her head, but after a moment, her own hand comes up to clasp her companion’s, and she graces the Inquisitor with a small half-smile.

Solas turns his eyes to the forest surrounding them, half-hearing the dwarf’s quiet apology. The Seeker has impressed him with her faith, her self-assurance, her cool knowledge of her own character. He has given little thought to those lost in the explosion, preferring to focus on its survivors. Knowing that his companion, whom he has fought beside and discussed with the complexities of reality and belief, has lost a loved one because of his own folly—it hurts more than it should.

They are shadows, after all, quick-children with fleeting and inconsequential lives. He will not spare them a moment’s thought once he raises Elvhenan from its own ashes. Yet— _yet_.

“Seeker,” he says at last, keeping his eyes on their surroundings, “I am sorry for your loss.”

Cassandra looks over her shoulder and meets his gaze. “He is dead, Solas,” she says, quietly. “Nothing will change that. But… I thank you just the same.”

Smoke curls behind Solas. Cole sits behind Solas, back-to-back. Solas looks over his shoulder to see the spirit’s head lifted toward the sky, his fingers drumming against the saddle leather. “Warm smile like the cookies from the kitchen. Shield, shelter, safe. They’ll have to get through me first, sis.”

Silence. The dwarf coughs again. “Wasn’t me,” he offers. The oxman shakes his head, and Cassandra half-shrugs. Everyone turns to the Inquisitor, who stares straight ahead, her grip on her horse’s reins tight.

“Get out of my head,” she says, quietly.

“I want to help,” says Cole. He pauses, clearly hesitant. “I’m… Cole. Spirit. Or—demon?”

“The two are not so dissimilar, Cole,” Solas points out, once more reminded why he dislikes this Inquisitor so. Her stubborn stance on spirits grates on him—she fears them beyond reason, and his attempts to tell her so have always ended poorly. There is nothing so vexing as speaking to deaf ears.

“I’m not Pride! I won’t hurt you!” says Cole, painfully earnest. The brim of his hat pokes into Solas’s back. “You don’t believe me, scared, skeptical, but I can show you, at Skyhold. I want to help.”

The Inquisitor is silent for so long Solas considers offering his council. But she surprises him when she exhales quietly and turns her head. She meets Solas’s gaze and smiles—her eyes light up, more brown than black, and her entire face brightens. Solas is certain that she is smiling at the spirit behind him.

“All right, Cole,” she says, softly. “We’ll talk at Skyhold.”

The spirit disappears behind him. The Inquisitor smiles at him, then looks away. An hour later, they reach Skyhold. The Inquisitor is swept away to address diplomatic concerns and fulfill other duties. The oxman and the dwarf retire to the tavern, and Cassandra volunteers to aid Dennet with the horses.

Solas retreats to the quiet of his bedroom, and breathes a sigh of relief. Quiet at last. He sets his pack on the bed and considers the simple furnishings. After a moment to his thoughts, Solas begins to unpack, setting his clean clothes in the dresser and setting the others aside.

At the bottom of the pack is _Thedosian Masters_. Solas pulls it from the rucksack and examines the gilded letters in the fading sunlight. Then, with a sigh, he lights a candle and settles down to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> Carmenum di Amatus, BioWare


	3. Chapter 3

He is mixing paints when she returns to the rotunda, her arms wrapped around herself. She picks up the poetry book and collapses on the sofa, kicking off her boots and curling on the couch. The mage comes downstairs, his nose in a book. He looks up as he shuts the door behind him, and his gaze focuses on the Inquisitor. “Aha! There you are,” he says. The Inquisitor lifts her legs, and the mage settles beside her, drawing her clothed feet into his lap after a thorough examination of their cleanliness.

Solas watches them descend into silence as they read their respective books. His gaze lingers on the curve of the Inquisitor's neck, tracing the braid that disappears into the bun at the back of her head. It is pinned in place with a golden ribbon. A strand of ebony hair rests against her collar.

There is a tender intimacy in their shared moment. Solas is… uncertain. He has grown used to solitude during his year since uthenera.

And yet.

He turns back to his paints, banishing the thought, but as soon as he dips his brush the Inquisitor speaks. “You don’t mind us being here, do you?” she asks. Solas turns to her, taken aback by her question. She’s lowered the volume to her lap, and has tucked the loose hair behind her ear. Her eyes are brown, depthless, and soft. “I don’t want to disturb you.”

“It is no bother, Inquisitor,” he says, turning back to the mural.

“That’s a yes,” laughs the mage. He pats the Inquisitor’s knee. “No matter, my dear. My chair is far more comfortable.”

“That is a ‘you both may stay,’” Solas interrupts, though he looks at the Inquisitor as he speaks. He looks back at his paints, gold and orange and black and red—fitting colors for the destruction of Haven. “So long as you both are quiet.”

“Thank you, Solas,” she says.

The next hour is filled only with breaths, and turning pages, and paintbrush strokes. Runners come with messages for the Inquisitor and the mage both, but the Inquisitor respects his wishes and takes the messages outside. When he finishes the singular beam of light, radiating from the orb clasped in Corypheus’s claws, he looks over his shoulder.

The Inquisitor is watching him paint, her eyes wide and soft with awe. The volume of poetry lies discarded on her lap. The loose strand of hair has escaped from behind her ear, and it curls on her collarbone once more.

Solas turns away before she can notice his glance. He resumes his work, picking up a new brush and filling in Corypheus’s cloak. At some point, the mage announces his exit to go to the tavern, and his footsteps fade as he walks out of the rotunda.

Solas knows the precise moment they are alone, because a soundproof barrier shivers over his skin. He finishes his stroke and lifts the brush from the wall, raising an eyebrow as he turns to face the Inquisitor. She hasn’t moved from her spot on his sofa, but the book is closed and she runs her fingertip over its golden title.

“I talked to Cole,” she says. “I believe him when he says he wants to help. He’s staying, no matter what Cassandra and Vivienne think of it.”

Solas examines the remaining sketches on the wall, determining which sector to paint next. Perhaps the white mountaintops of the Frostbacks. “Excellent. Perhaps now you will not subscribe to the Enchanter’s paranoia—”

The steady beat of her fingertips drumming against the book stops. “Solas,” she says. “Do you know what a Harrowing is?”

“I know enough,” he hedges. He had not dreamt of the Circles, only of their existence, and had had to supplement his knowledge with research. The Harrowings were one of the worst parts of the Circles. A barbaric practice, by all accounts, and, unsurprisingly, an invention by humans.

“The elder mages of the Circle send out a summoning to a demon, but they can’t always control what answers. I was supposed to get a weak demon, one of Annoyance or Mischief. Instead, a pride demon answered their call. I fought it for four hours and twenty-two minutes.”

He thinks of her paralysis when standing between the pride demon and himself. He can still recall the terror on her face at the river. He remembers the fear he had disdained, and shame burns in the tips of his ears. “Sometimes, if a Harrowing is taking too long, the Templars will kill mages before they wake up. A preemptive strike, if you will,” the Inquisitor continues. 

Solas stills. He had not known that. 

Recovering, he wipes off his paintbrush with a rag and turns to the Inquisitor, resting the cloth and brush on his desk. The Inquisitor swallows and stares at the poetry in her lap. “I was told that after the initial four hours, the Templars had agreed to wait twenty-five more minutes.”

“It’s taking too long,” Solas echoes, quietly.

Her smile is hollow, and does not touch her eyes. “It’s taking too long,” she agrees. “If I had fought the pride demon for three more minutes, I would not be here. So when you say that it is  _irrational_  to fear demons, I—I’m terrified of Templars, too. Is that irrational, as well?”

Solas closes his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think you are too quick to judge people,” she counters, and Solas blinks. He opens his mouth, a denial ready on his tongue, but her eyes narrow. “What do you think of humans? Honestly?”

“Selfish,” he returns, his own nose scrunching in annoyance. If she wants honesty, she will have it. “Short-sighted. You view all situations in black-and-white; there is rarely a third path for your kind.”

“Do you think I’m selfish? Or Cassandra?” she retorts. “Do you think that I or—”

“ _You_  are an anomaly!” he says, his voice rising. “You have defied my every expectation, surprised me at every turn, and I cannot understand  _why!_ ”

“Maybe it’s because you haven’t gotten to know the individuals before you cast judgement on them! We’re  _people_ , Solas, you can’t just group everyone into your preconceived boxes and then wonder why they don’t fit inside the lines. Remember what you said about how people shouldn’t judge you for being an elf, like they shouldn’t define Cassandra by her faith, or Varric by his chest hair? And yet you turn around and do the same thing to everyone else!”

“I do no such thing—” Solas argues, then stops short, remembering Wisdom’s words.  _You are surprised this woman does not meet your expectations?_  He inhales, slowly, composing himself. He clasps his hands behind him, regarding the woman before him in silence.

“So you believe you were wrong about Cole,” he clarifies. She nods, wariness quivering in every muscle. Solas looks back at the fresco. He will need further contemplation, of course, to muse over her accusations and his actions. Wisdom would likely be more than willing to humor him in this case.

“You so readily admit your mistakes,” he says, softly, turning his gaze back to her. “My apologies, Inquisitor. I fear that is not a character trait we share. But I will work on it, now that you have brought it to my attention.”

He still does not fully believe her, not truly. Wisdom will do what the Inquisitor cannot; it will discuss her accusations with him and it will help him determine the truth of her words.

She stands. “I was—I don’t know. I’d just like to know more about you, Solas. And I can’t help but feel as if you don’t want that. As if you would prefer to keep people out.”

“Why?” Solas asks, wary at once. What could befriending him gain her? Does she imagine she will gain his loyalty? Perhaps her intentions are pure, but Ghilan’nain had shown that even sincerity could be a mask. He takes a step back, putting more distance between them.

She blinks. “Why? Oh. You prefer to be alone, which is fine, but—”

Solas shakes his head. “Why do you want to know more about me?”

“Because I respect you,” she says, firmly and without hesitation. “You saved my life when my fear got the better of me. I… I’d like to know how to properly repay you.”

Her words shake free something loose and uncomfortable inside him.

“Put it from your mind,” he requests, turning away. “I require no thanks, Inquisitor. Anyone in my position would have done the same.”

The truth of his words shames him. He needs her alive, to get the orb and the Anchor both. To lose her would be to lose all of his carefully crafted plans. He had not put himself between her and the pride demon to be a good man, but to further his own goals.

He says nothing else, and eventually, she leaves, murmuring a farewell. The silencing barrier dissipates with her absence. Solas does not even notice she had returned the poetry book to the corner of his desk until he turns to retrieve his paintbrush. Something catches the candlelight, glimmering between the pages.

When Solas thumbs through the book, he finds a new page bookmarked by a silk golden ribbon. He runs his fingertip over the fabric once and closes the book without reading the poem. He puts the book aside and focuses once more on the fresco. By the time he is satisfied with his progress on the mural, it is near dark out, and the Great Hall quiet save a few stragglers. His room is blessedly quiet, and Solas sighs as he lays down on the simple bed. There are reports to write and shards to study, yet the Inquisitor’s words echo in his head. He will not get any work done tonight, not when his mind is so consumed with their conversation.

Wisdom will ease his consternation; it will soothe his racing thoughts and help him find his way back to the right path. He watches the twilight and listens to his quiet, steady breaths. It is only a matter of minutes before his eyes slip shut and he sleeps.

When he enters the library, Wisdom is screaming.

 

 

 

He sits at his desk, holding a report he has not read in the hour he’s been back at Skyhold. He tries to read the neat script before him, but the only words he registers are those of his memory.

 _Ma ghilana mir din’an._  Guide me into death.

At least it had come back into itself at the last moment. At least it had had a moment of peace, before—before. Solas sets the report down and rubs both of his hands down his face. He has not used a lick of mana, but his migraine is strong as ever.

“You’re back!” says the Inquisitor. He looks up to see her resting her forearms on the railing above him. Solas nods, and she beams at him, pushing off of the wood to head for the stairs. When she enters the rotunda, she stops in front of his desk, her expression softening. “How are you, Solas?”

“It hurts,” he says, honestly. “It always does. But I will survive.”

Their conversation drifts to Wisdom, what may have happened to it, if it could exist again. Even speaking of his friend reawakens the ache he’d managed to dull during his three weeks alone. Soon, their words taper into silence, and she drums her fingers against the wood. “Did you ever read that poem?” she asks. He knows what she refers to at once.

“No. Forgive me, I have been…” he trails off, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Solas,” she says. Her smile is gentle and warms her dark eyes. “You don’t need to explain. I… I thought it might cheer you up. It was before we went to the Plains, but… I wonder if it might be more meaningful for you now.”

The book’s permanent location has moved from the sofa to the edge of his desk. Solas reaches for it without another word, flipping through the pages until he gets to the one marked by a golden ribbon. Solas reads through the poem, finding nothing of value until he is halfway through it. He reads the stanza, re-reads it, and goes very still.

 _What though death at times steps in_  
_And calls our best away?_  
_What though Sorrow seems to win,_  
_O'er Hope, a heavy sway?_  
_Yet hope again elastic springs,_  
_Unconquered, though she fell;_  
_Still buoyant are her golden wings,_  
_Still strong to bear us well._

Solas smiles through gritted teeth and shuts the book. He looks up and pinches the bridge of his nose with his other hand, exhaling evenly. “Thank you, Inquisitor,” he says, yet the words sound hollow. “If there is nothing else, I have much work to do.”

“You didn’t like it,” she notes. He sets the book on the desk and turns, half-ignoring her.

“Don’t go,” she continues, pleading, soft, always so  _soft_. He turns on the ball of his foot, closing the distance between them and settling two hands on the desk behind her, trapping her within his arms. She does not cower before him, not even as he turns the full force of his reawakened fury upon her.

“Your naïveté sickens me,” he hisses. “Do you think  _hope_  will bring my oldest friend back? Do you think that  _hope_  will repair the damage that’s been done? If I only smile, I will no longer grieve? You are weak, Inquisitor. You are sheltered and idealistic in a cold world; it will look upon your soft heart and rend it to ribbons!”

Pain flickers in her eyes. “Better sheltered and idealistic than mired in misery!” she retorts. “I was trying to help—”

“The only thing that could have possibly  _helped_ ,” he hisses, his fingers tightening on the wood, “was the deaths of those shemlen. And that you denied me! Some men do not deserve mercy, Inquisitor!”

“Since when is ignorance punishable by death?” she retorts, pink prickling across her cheeks. “You would’ve regretted it, Solas, you know you would’ve.”

He pulls away and takes the book, thumbing through the pages until he finds his own bookmark. He withdraws the loose scrap of parchment he’d used as a marker and sets his eyes on the poem. With his back to her, he reads aloud— 

_There’s little joy in life for me,_  
_And little terror in the grave;_  
_I’ve lived the parting hour to see_  
_Of one I would have died to save._  
_And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,_  
_Must bear alone the weary strife._

“Oh,  _Solas_ ,” she says.

He sets down the book and meets her eyes. The anger burns slower, now, a smoldering heat in the center of his stomach that borders on anguish when he looks at her. He has had enough. He cannot abide her wide-eyed idealism, not when Wisdom’s loss is a ragged gash in his soul that bleeds with every breath. Her stubborn insistence in the existence of better things turns his breath to poison, curdles searing agony in his chest. “By your leave, Inquisitor,” he says. He clenches his jaw and brushes past her.

Her hand catches his arm, fingers wrapping around the muscle above his elbow. “You don’t have to mourn alone,” she says, quietly. Yet somehow her murmur echoes in the rotunda. Tears prick the corners of his eyes, and he grinds his teeth together.

No. No, he had spent all of his grief alone—he should not— _he must go._

He pulls out of her grasp and strides out of the rotunda, heading toward his own room as quickly as he is able. She follows him, wordless, but he makes no move to stop her. When he reaches his room, he shuts the door behind him. A moment later, it opens, and closes once more.

He shudders, and when he blinks, the tears that had blinded his vision slip down his cheeks. The salt on his face clears his eyes and rips through the muscle of his heart. He clenches his hands and grits his teeth, doing his best to keep the sounds of his grief inside him. 

She shifts her weight behind him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have followed. That was impulsive of me. Would you like me to go?”

Solas exhales heavily and covers his eyes with a hand, keenly aware of how his fingers tremble. So far, his body has not betrayed him—he has made no sound. Though he can feel her presence beside him, he is not self-conscious, or embarrassed, or irritated at her presence. He is—

He is grateful: that she is there, that she cares enough to be with him in his mourning. He has never treated her in such a way to deserve her compassion. He had just  _insulted_  her, yet she still gives of herself freely. 

“No,” he says, hoarsely. 

Her hand moves across his back, rubbing in large, soothing circles; her gentle touch undoes him. He squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth, but his next breath heaves, and he cannot stop his sob. Self-control crashes to his feet, but before he can fall to his knees or otherwise stagger, she steers him to the bed.

Solas cries with his teeth clamped shut, his blunt nails digging into his palms, as some last-ditch attempt to hold in the sobs that wrack his body. But the more he tries to build up a wall, the higher the flood rises, until he can do nothing but hunch his shoulders and let his grief flow down his cheeks. 

Wisdom’s library is empty, now, he knows, its shelves cracked and bare. The books the spirit had remembered for an ungrateful world—gone. The chairs they had sat at, discussing countless topics—empty. The memories they had seen together—only he remains. He is the last heartbeat of a dying people. He is alone.

The word repeats in his mind, in beat with the blood rushing in his ears. _Alone. I am the last of the Elvhen._ _  
_

When his shuddering stops, the Inquisitor gently takes his hand. She unfurls his fingers, one by one, revealing deep crescent-shaped marks in his palms. His hands ache—he had not even noticed the pain. She rubs circles over his shoulderblade with one hand and heals the shallow indents with the other. Solas watches her golden-tipped fingers run over his lifeline for a few heartbeats, then closes his eyes.

“Forgive me,” he whispers. His voice is very hoarse.

“For what?” she asks.

“You are not weak,” he replies. She stiffens for a heartbeat, then exhales, long and quiet. She takes his other clenched hand and repeats her previous process. Solas lets her, focusing on the feel of her fingertips on his skin. “You have striven to make the Inquisition a just organization, a haven for all people, no matter their race or creed. You would rather heal what is broken than shed blood. You are guided by Compassion itself. Any kingdom would be so lucky to have such a leader.”

He opens his eyes, turning his head. She’s blushing, a pale pink over the apples of her cheeks, and her head is turned so he can see the twin beauty marks again. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save your friend,” she says, shaking her head slightly.

“No.” Solas turns toward her fully. He is vulnerable like this, raw and aching, but for once, he wishes to be as earnest and open with her as she is with him. “No, Inquisitor, that is not important. What is important is this: anyone else would have seen a pride demon, and acted accordingly. You—you saw my friend. Though it had the form you have always feared, you attempted to save it. That matters to me greatly.”

Her eyes are red, but she sheds no tears. “I thought you wouldn’t come back,” she confesses.

He half-smiles: a ragged, weary thing. Much like the rest of him, he supposes. “I could hardly abandon you now.”

 

 

 

The next day, there is a new volume of poetry on his desk. It has a dark color, the cover carved from wood, and golden paint flicks inside the lettering.  _Fasti et Tristia: Poems from Tevinter._  A blue ribbon is tucked between the thick pages.

 _I measure every Grief I meet_  
_With narrow, probing, Eyes—_  
_I wonder if It weighs like Mine—_  
_Or has an Easier size._

 _I wonder if They bore it long—_  
_Or did it just begin—_  
_I could not tell the Date of Mine—_  
_It feels so old a pain—_

 _I wonder if it hurts to live—_  
_And if They have to try—_  
_And whether—could They choose between—_  
_It would not be—to die—_

 _I note that Some—gone patient long—_  
_At length, renew their smile—_  
_An imitation of a Light_  
_That has so little Oil._

He half-smiles, and moves the blue ribbon to a new page.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> "Life" by Charlotte Brontë  
> "On the Death of Anne Brontë" by Charlotte Brontë  
> "I Measure Every Grief I Meet" by Emily Dickinson
> 
> gettin' some ladies up in here! ... did YOU find the Ovid reference in this chapter? [literature nerd out]


	4. Chapter 4

_I have had enough.  
_ _I gasp for breath._

 _Every way ends, every road,_  
_every foot-path leads at last_  
_to the hill-crest—_  
_then you retrace your steps,  
__or find the same slope on the other side,_  

 _I have had enough—_  
_border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,  
_ _herbs, sweet-cress._

 _O for some sharp swish of a branch—_  
_there is no scent of resin_  
_in this place,_  
_no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,_  
_aromatic, astringent—  
_ _only border on border of scented pinks._

 _For this beauty,_  
_beauty without strength,_  
_chokes out life._  
_I want wind to break,_  
_scatter these pink-stalks,_  
_snap off their spiced heads,_  
_fling them about with dead leaves—_  
_spread the paths with twigs,_  
_limbs broken off,_  
_trail great pine branches,_  
_hurled from some far wood_  
_right across the melon-patch,_  
_break pear and quince—_  
_leave half-trees, torn, twisted  
_ _but showing the fight was valiant._

 _O to blot out this garden_  
_to forget, to find a new beauty_  
_in some terrible  
_ _wind-tortured place._

 

Solas runs his fingers over the script. He will never admit it to the mage, but Tevinter ( _human_ ) poetry has far exceeded his low expectations.

As has much of this broken world. For all its mistakes, for all its wrongness, it has its beauties. He thinks of twin freckles on the left side of a woman’s cheek, and shakes his head to clear his mind. A recommendation will have to wait. There is work to be done.

He sets the poetry aside and turns his attention to studying the shard on his desk. He still has yet to determine the objects’ purposes, and he has been analyzing them for the better part of two weeks.

Perhaps the temple out in the west will aid him in his search. Solas runs a few more tests on the shard, and writes down his observations. It does not react to any of his probes, but glows when left to the ambiance of the room.

He’s still frowning when he hears the Inquisitor’s light footsteps behind him. He turns, only to see her standing in the doorway, her arms behind her back. Her bottom lip is snagged between her teeth, hiding a grin. “I have a gift for you,” she says, quietly. “Close your eyes?”

Solas studies her form, reading the excitement in her eyes, the nervousness in her half-hidden smile. He is still for so long her smile falters. At last, he acquiesces, listening to her approach him. He hears a rustle of some fabric, and she takes his palm in her own, turning it upward.

A weight is placed in his hand. Her fingertips brush over his knuckles and pull away. Solas opens his eyes and looks down.

It is a slender rectangle, thin and light in his palm, wrapped in silver tissue. Solas carefully pulls away the tissue wrapping and stares, stunned, at the new poetry volume in his hands. _Recovered Poems from Elvhenan: Translated by Lord Antoine d’Onterre_.

“This is the last copy,” she says, shifting her weight when Solas does not respond right away. “It was mostly banned and put out of print because of its content. Ostwick Circle was more than willing to give it to the esteemed Inquisitor.”

Solas cannot speak. He swallows and carefully opens the cover, reading the first poem. The Elvhen is printed on the left side, and the translation on the right. He finds the first mistake in the second couplet, and carefully steels his expression. He will write his own proper translations, in due time.

“I do not—” he starts, then clears his throat.

She clasps her hands behind her back, straightening her shoulders as she tilts her head at him, her grin returned in full force, devastating in its sweet sincerity. “I mean, I got a book for Dorian, so why not you too?”

“I am not certain how to thank you for this,” he replies, brushing a fingertip over the Elvhen script. It is only fragments, yes, but seeing his language written in a hand not his own is… bittersweet. For a moment, he forgets how to speak.

“Well, ‘thank you’ will suffice,” she teases. Solas looks at her, his eyebrows raised. She straightens her shoulders and angles to mirror him, gazing at him with a small, coy quirk of her mouth. Solas shakes his head, closes the book, and returns her small smile.

“Thank you,” he replies, sincerely. “This gift means more than you know.”

“Always glad to help,” she returns. “Though your recs will have to wait. Hawke wants to go to Crestwood to meet this Warden. Apparently he can help us with the rest of the Order.”

Solas furrows his brow. “Who will be in your party?”

“Dorian, Cassandra, Varric, and Cole,” she says, shrugging. “Bull needed to stay behind to catch up on reports, Vivienne is helping Josephine get more influence so we can go to Celene’s ball, Blackwall didn’t want to go, and I couldn’t find Sera.”

“Yet that is only four of your Inner Circle,” he replies. “You usually travel with five.”

He does not state that he has been excluded, but she pinks despite his omission. As she ducks her head, a few strands of black hair come undone from the braid pinned to the side of her head. “You seem so busy,” she replies, meeting his gaze. “I felt guilty taking you everywhere. I thought you’d enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Ah. “So long as Sera is at Skyhold, I will not have peace and quiet,” he replies. She laughs so hard she snorts. A hand flies up to cover her mouth and her eyes widen, her face deepening to a flaming scarlet. Solas smiles at her, more warmly this time, and she shakes her head.

“Sorry,” she apologizes from behind her hand. “It’s a bad habit and I’ve been trying to break it—”

“Inquisitor, there is no need to hide your laughter,” he returns, turning to set the book on the desk beside him. “It is often one’s most attractive feature.”

“Oh,” she breathes out, and Solas realizes what he’s said. He inhales slowly through his nose and straightens his shoulders, forcing himself to look at her. She’s lowered her hand, and her cheeks are redder than the previous. “Um.”

He does not answer, though he gazes at her intently. She looks bewildered, and for some reason her wide, shocked eyes disappoint him. “I would not mind accompanying you to Crestwood, Inquisitor,” he says, a note of finality in his voice.

She recovers. “We, um, we’re leaving tomorrow morning at first light. Front gate.”

When she is gone, a throat clears above him. Solas looks up and sees the mage staring down, an eyebrow arched and fingertips toying with the curled end of his moustache. “So…” he drawls.

“No,” Solas declares, glaring.

 

 

 

The ride to Crestwood is meant to take a week, but the Inquisitor decides to detour to Redcliffe. The Champion rides ahead, insisting that this mysterious Warden will not wait that long without word from the Inquisition, and the dwarf accompanies his friend.

“What is there in Redcliffe?” Cassandra wonders aloud. Out of the corner of his eye, Solas spots the mage’s expression darken.

“A trap, most likely,” says the mage. “Perhaps an assassin, or an attempted kidnapping. It will be fun!”

“Don’t say that,” chides the Inquisitor. She twists around on her horse to frown at the man behind Solas. Solas looks at Cassandra, who only shakes her head.

“Of course,” says the mage, rolling his eyes. He waves a dismissive hand. “Forgive me my pessimism. By all accounts it will be a joyful reunion, full of hugs and tearful declarations of love and other general warm fuzziness.”

The mage has never made his self-supposed solitude a secret, but the bitterness of his words strikes Solas for the first time. He had wondered, once, what could have happened in the mage’s luxurious life to change such an embedded viewpoint, but his attitude had rankled and Solas had abandoned such musings.

Now, his curiosity is reignited. But he holds his tongue, and the rest of the two hours’ ride to Redcliffe is spent with smalltalk and silence.

 

 

 

The mage emerges from the tavern with white-knuckled fists clenched and glassy eyes narrowed. The Inquisitor follows soon after; her eyes are red, but she does not cry. “To Crestwood,” she tells Cassandra, who nods and nudges her horse forward. The Inquisitor pulls back to ride beside the mage. She casts a silencing barrier, and Solas and Cassandra are left to their own devices.

As the journey to Crestwood progresses, the atmosphere darkens, and a light rain starts up. Solas casts a barrier over the entire party, and Cassandra watches the rain splash onto the magic with something akin to admiration in her eyes.

“What does a Smite feel like, Solas?” she asks, and their conversation draws his attention from the silent duo behind him. He and Cassandra talk until they tire of it, and the silence carries them to where the Champion and the dwarf await them.

Crestwood is a wretched place, full of mud and slush and misery. Thick, smoke-dark clouds hang over the land, a blanket of gloom that never abates. The rain is relentless, and Solas must conserve his mana to fight the bandits that roam the region.

When they return from a hard night of fighting, the drowned carcasses of the old Crestwood freshly exposed to daylight once more, a fire already waits for the group. The Inquisitor and the mage sit down on the side of the fire opposite Solas, and their conversation resumes. Cassandra retires, and Cole sits beside Solas, his feet tapping against the ground. Solas carves the top of his new staff further, adding twists in the scruff of a howling wolf.

As he brushes wood chips off of his stave, he hears the mage say, “Selfish, I suppose, not wanting to spend the rest of your life screaming on the inside.”

Solas’s hand stills, and he lifts his head, regarding Dorian in the firelight. The Inquisitor leans against him, her eyes closed, and Dorian has rested his head on top of hers. Again, Solas is struck by the intimacy of their closeness, and something hot and uncomfortable prickles in the center of his chest. They were not—were they—?

 _It is none of your concern,_ he chides himself, and yet he is still curious.

“You know that you can always talk to me,” she murmurs, but her eyes flash up to Solas. He sighs and looks back at the top of his staff, adding another curve to the wolf’s thick scruff. Its jaw is open on a howl, and there is a notch inside its mouth for the focusing crystal.

“I know,” Dorian says. “I’m grateful for that. And—you can always talk to me. I do believe that’s something friends do, yes?”

“More like something _best_ friends do,” she says, and closes her eyes, a soft smile pulling at her lips.

The camp is silent, punctured by Cassandra’s light snores and the crack of the fire as it devours its tinder. Solas continues to carve, smoothing down the rough patches in the wood, adding a notched slot for the blade. She had seen beauty in something the rest of the world would have regarded as hopeless and wretched. And now he had to do her faith credit.

The Inquisitor’s breathing turns deep and steady. Solas looks up and, yes, she’s fallen asleep. Dorian has positioned her head to rest in his lap rather than the painful-looking straps around his shoulder, and he is staring into the fire, his gaze far away and his lips pulled into a faint frown.

 _You are too quick to judge people_ , the Inquisitor had said. Solas lowers his carving knife after carefully creating an eye, slitted shut as the wolf howled. “I would like to apologize, Dorian,” says Solas. He is mindful of the Inquisitor’s sleeping form; he is quiet, his voice hardly louder than a murmur.

“For what, eavesdropping?”

Solas sighs through his nose. He had not been _eavesdropping_ —he looks up, sees a gleam in the man’s eye, and the reprimand dies on his tongue. “For judging you too quickly,” he replies. “For deciding our differences were too great after three trivial conversations. For—” he catches himself, “—your command of the Fade… it is impressive.”

Dorian half-smiles. “You’re not the first to say so.”

Ah, there is the expected vanity. Solas narrows his eyes. “Would you not conserve magical energy with a less… flashy style, however?”

Dorian’s smile stretches into a grin. “And I could live longer on rice and boiled vegetables, but that’s just as unlikely.”

Cole taps his foot, the first noise he’s made in several minutes. Solas looks at him, watches the twitches of the spirit’s fingertips. “What is on your mind, Cole?”

Cole lifts his head, his eyes wide under his hat, and focuses on Dorian. “Dorian, you said I could ask you questions.”

Dorian’s smile turns forced. He glances at Solas, then nods toward the spirit. “Ah. Yes. I did say that.” The Inquisitor sighs in her sleep, turning her head toward the fire. Dorian directs his smile toward her, and it turns decidedly softer at the edges. “And we should get our dear Inquisitor to a proper bedroll, it seems,” he adds.

Cole taps his foot again, his fingers twitching, his gaze on Dorian impatient. Solas wordlessly sets his staff and tools aside and rises to his feet. “I will take her and leave you two alone,” he says, walking around the dying fire to kneel before the Inquisitor. Dorian lifts her head as Solas slides his hands under her back and her knees.

She huffs a sigh against his tunic as he lifts her, curling against his chest. Her head rolls to rest against the crook of his neck and her fingers curve over his heart. Dorian raises an eyebrow, but Solas does not dignify his incredulous expression with a response. He merely holds her closer and crosses the space to her tent.

He hears Cole ask something about fathers as he enters her and Cassandra’s tent. Her bedroll is already spread out, blankets folded in neat squares near the end.

Solas kneels and carefully lays her down, doing his best not to jostle her. Her breathing remains steady as he slides his hands out from underneath her and reach for the blankets. He shakes one out and pulls it over her. His hands hover at her shoulders and for a long, terrifying moment, he does not know what to do with them.

As he pulls away, she catches him off-guard. Her hand lifts to clasp his wrist, and her eyes open. They shine in the darkness. “Thank you,” she whispers, her voice still thick from sleep.

“Go back to sleep,” he bids, quietly. Her fingers skirt over his skin and drop to her stomach.

“Night, Solas,” she mumbles, turning over and surrendering to the Fade’s embrace once more. Though she cannot hear his response, he returns the words, and leaves the tent once more.

When he is alone in his tent, he tucks his hands under his armpits and crosses his ankles, his gaze fixed on the cloth above him. His wrist is still warm from her touch.

 

 

 

Two days after they drain the lake, Solas awakens to find Dorian already gone. That is not so surprising in and of itself, but the grunts outside pique his curiosity. He stretches and gets out of the tent, only to stop and blink.

The rain has stopped. The sun shines, and the calf-high grass sways in the gentle breeze. Sunshine dapples the purple flowers that bloom in the meadow. The sky is clear and blue. It’s… rather beautiful. Solas blinks, still adjusting to the brightness, and looks to the middle of the campside. Cassandra is cooking a stew, Cole at her side, and they both greet him in the quiet softness of the morning. Solas nods in acknowledgement, then turns his head at the clack of wood on wood somewhere far off.

He follows the noise and stops in the shadow of Cassandra and the Inquisitor’s tent, observing the situation before him.

Dorian and the Inquisitor face each other, but Solas is safely out of their sight. The Inquisitor is in a loose white tunic; Dorian is shirtless and already sweating. They each carry a large, thin pole.

“You need more focus,” says Dorian, leaning on his staff. “Electricity is all about building up energy, and releasing it when you know it’ll hurt. If you don’t have the form down to channel it properly, it will hurt you instead.”

“I feel like this is just spending energy,” she retorts, panting. She lifts a hand to run it through her unbound curls, and the shirt lifts. Solas fixes his gaze on the purple flowers and grazing druffalo behind her.

“You’re not feeling any buildup?” Dorian asks, to her soft snorting laughter.

“Wretch,” she accuses, and Dorian’s laugh is his agreement. The Inquisitor wipes her brow with the hem of her shirt and then twists her staff, pointing the end toward Dorian. “Okay. I’m ready.”

Dorian closes the distance and brings his staff down hard. She catches it with her own pole and twists around, swinging her weapon in a graceful arc. Their dance is fast, multi-layered and complex, full of thrusts and parries and crackles of electricity on Dorian’s part. She is effortless with her barriers, but whenever there is distance between them and she points her staff, she only grits her teeth, as if the result was not one she’d wanted.

“Sparring is good, too,” Dorian says, smirking after another unfruitful attempt to produce electricity. “Though I do believe this was meant to practice your magic.”

“I’m trying, you ass,” the Inquisitor grits out. She nearly gets him in the stomach, but Dorian parries the blow at the last instant. The Inquisitor takes a step back to catch her breath. “We should get Solas and Cassandra to fight. Take a little break.”

Dorian snorts, and shoots a bolt of lightning from the end of his staff. Solas feels a jolt of alarm, his fingertips twitching, but his worry is in vain; the attack dissipates in her barrier. “Solas?” says Dorian. “Have pity on the poor man. He wouldn’t stand a chance against our Seeker.”

“He was a soldier, once,” she retorts. Dorian’s dismissive huff makes her attempt to electrocute him. Her efforts produce a solitary spark. She frowns at the tip of her staff as if it has personally disappointed her. “I heard him talking with Blackwall.”

“And when did our favorite hobo apostate have a chance to fight all alone in the wilderness? Who did he fight, the wolves?”

“If you actually took the time—” she grunts as she lunges forward, aiming for his legs. Dorian catches her pole with his own and she quivers as she pushes against him, trying to budge the deadlock. “—to _listen to him_ , you’d find that he is a fascinating man.”

“Fascinating, hm?” Dorian teases. Solas is not certain he likes Dorian’s tone.

Cassandra joins his side, then, with a small murmur informing him that breakfast is prepared. She makes to call out to the sparring duo, but Solas stops her and shakes his head. She settles to watch beside him instead.

“Yes!” the Inquisitor cries. Dorian steps away and to the side, pivoting on his heel, and she stumbles forward, catching her balance in time. “He’s well traveled, and has interesting stories—”

She points her pole, and scowls as nothing happens. Solas can feel her pulling on the Fade, but she does not quite know what she seeks. The Fade answers to willpower, and though Solas does not doubt her desire for _something_ to happen, he wonders whether the Inquisitor herself has any specifics for what that _something_ is.

Her shoulders hunch and she smacks the ground with her pole, letting out a cry of frustration. “We’ve been at this since dawn. I don’t understand why nothing’s happening.”

Solas watches Dorian call a halt and drop his sparring weapon, catching his breath. The Inquisitor sits down and puts her head in her hands. “There’s nothing wrong with being more suited to healing,” says Dorian, sitting beside her. “The world needs more spirit healers, I imagine.”

She gets to her feet, pacing before her friend. “No. What is _wrong_ is that the Chantry uses the Circles to keep the mages dependent on them. I was always told, ‘Oh, you’re so lucky to be in Ostwick!’ because Ostwick Templars let us read poetry books, and have game nights, and we only had a handful of Tranquil.” She laughs, bitterly, and rakes her hands through her hair. “How kind of them, treating us like people instead of animals! No, Dorian, what is _wrong_ is that I’ve lived in the Circle for fifteen years and I don’t know a single spell to defend myself. I don’t know how to cook or clean or repair my clothes. I don’t know how to live outside of a Circle unless there’s people doing things for me—”

Solas looks to Cassandra. The warrior is tense, but her lips are pursed, and her eyes have that light that means she is considering something carefully. “Breakfast is ready,” she calls, her voice loud and clear across the space.

The Inquisitor looks up in alarm, and guilt creeps into her expression, downturning her lips and softening her eyes. But she recovers quickly, extending a hand to Dorian to help him up. As Solas walks back to the center of camp, he hears Dorian say, “You don’t know how to summon _anything_ from across the Veil?”

“Not unless it’s a spirit to help my healing,” says the Inquisitor, tired and defeated. Dorian sits at the fire looking horrified, and rightly so. The more Solas learns of these prisons, the more disgusted he grows.

“The Circles need change, I agree,” Cassandra declares, sitting down. She takes a bowl from Cole and starts spooning stew into it. “The existing system must be reformed. I have heard some advocate for the dissolution of the Circles altogether, but the Circles, flawed as they are, have a purpose.”

The Inquisitor’s frown deepens, and her shoulders slump. “I guess,” she says, half-convinced and entirely dejected.

“No,” says Solas. Cassandra looks up, and Dorian takes the stew from her. “Inquisitor, you need not apologize for your feelings. I am sorry we were close enough to overhear something you had intended to be between yourself and Dorian.”

“This is the second time Solas has apologized in eight hours!” exclaims Dorian. He points an accusing spoon toward the Inquisitor. “It’s your nefarious influence, no doubt. What did you put in his food last night?”

Solas narrows his eyes. “Perhaps I am capable of realizing my own mistakes and acting accordingly, Dorian.”

“And perhaps there are Magisters who don’t use blood magic,” says Dorian, with a wry smile. “Don’t be ruffled, my glabrous friend. She’s inspired me to do better as well. I only called Blackwall a hairy lummox once last week!”

“ _Dorian_ ,” says the Inquisitor, exasperated. She swirls her spoon in her soup and does not look up.

“What is the plan today, Inquisitor?” asks Cassandra.

The Inquisitor smiles, gratitude shining in her eyes. “Well, we need to clear out that wyvern cave…”

 

Near the end of the day, they see ruins of an old castle. After a short rest, their party starts crossing the clearing between the roads and the castle.

Halfway to the ruins, a great, winged shadow falls over them. Solas looks up to see a purple dragon circling them. “Oh, shit,” the Inquisitor breathes beside him. She turns around and grabs Solas, pulling him backwards, away from the dragon. “Okay, team, let’s leave the ruins for another day!”

Solas takes one look at the dragon as it lands half a mile from them, and does not need any further encouragement. They retreat to the safety of camp, and by unanimous vote, decide to rest for the remainder of the day.

Solas finishes his carving his staff just after twilight. He summons magelights to aid him in the final once-over. When he returns to Skyhold, he will ask the arcanist to add enchantments and a focusing crystal.

He sets his new weapon aside. When he looks up, he sees the Inquisitor laying in the grass, staring at the starlit sky. The clouds had finished emptying themselves before dinner, and had given way to a clear sky, granting them a halcyon view of the constellations. The grass is soft and wet under his feet, but it does not discourage him from sitting next to her.

“We have a long day tomorrow, Inquisitor,” he tells her. “We should all get some rest.”

Dorian had already retired, and Cole is keeping watch with Cassandra. The Inquisitor smiles at him and pats the spot beside her. “Do you know the constellations, Solas?” she asks.

“Ah.” He hesitates, then lies beside her. She scoots closer until their shoulders brush. Solas focuses on the night sky above him. “Somewhat.”

“The night’s beautiful. Stargaze with me?”

He… cannot deny such an innocent request. Solas turns his head toward her, though his gaze remains fixed on the stars. “I have loved the stars too fondly,” he whispers, and in the corner of his eye, she smiles at him.

She points out constellations, her eyes wide and her smile bright, and he grants her the Elvhen names for them. While she gets excited, thinking she’s spotted Voyager, Solas steals a glance. She is a lady of moonlight before him, her black, black hair tinted blue and her beauty marks little splashes against her skin in the silver light. This close, he can smell her citrus perfume.

“Inquisitor,” he whispers to her, and she turns her head, meeting his gaze. “I have a question for you.”

She bites her lip, her eyes liquid in the darkness. “Yes?”

“What element do you want to use in battle?”

“Oh.” She looks away, and even in the darkness he can see her cheeks darken with her blush. “Electricity. But I don’t think that will work out. I’ll have to find something else.”

“Not necessarily.” Solas carefully reaches for her hand. When she does not move to stop him, he positions her hand over his; her hand is turned palm-up, a gentle beckoning, and he hovers his own hand above hers, fingertips inches apart. “I want you to close your eyes and imagine a spark in your hand. Imagine an arc of electricity, purple and white, dancing between your fingertips and mine. Once you have a picture, call to the Fade. Pull that spark from beyond the Veil.”

Her eyes are wide as she looks at him. Then her face falls. “I don’t think I can.”

“Have faith,” he says. The idea of teaching her to truly harness the grand potential of her magic—he would not mind it. He would not mind her wide smiles when she accomplishes her goals, or her excited calls to demonstrate her abilities, or her eyes turned upon him—

She closes her eyes and relaxes with a sigh. Solas listens to the crickets, his hand poised over hers, and waits. Her brow furrows in concentration, and after several minutes of silence punctuated by breathing, she cracks open one eye. Solas arches an eyebrow, his mouth curving with amusement, and she sighs, rolling onto her side in an effort to get more comfortable.

Her brow smoothes over, and her breathing deepens; for a long moment, he thinks she’s fallen asleep. But her hand is still poised under his, her fingertips just inches from his own palm. Solas remains still, waiting.

A white flicker catches his attention. He does not feel anything, but then her brow furrows and another spark jumps between their hands. At his small hiss of pain, her eyes open. “Again,” he says, and she does, fixating her gaze on their near-touching hands.

This time, a white-blue line of lightning jumps between their hands. This time, Solas is ready. He accepts the electricity into his skin and runs it through his body, gathering excess energy and transforming it into static. Dorian had not been incorrect about the specifics of electrical magic. The static adds to the lightning running in his bloodstream—when it circles back to his palm, Solas shocks her.

She gasps as a bright bolt jumps between them, but her barrier absorbs most of it; what is left hovers over her hand, a crackling ball of unreleased energy. Solas lowers his hand, and she is left staring at her own magic with wide-eyed disbelief. Her gaze flits to his face.

For a moment, the world holds its breath as they stare at each other, caught.

Even the crickets still, and the lightning’s hum does not seem so loud.

Solas swallows. “A gift,” he murmurs, studying her expression. “To thank you for your kindnesses.”

He had scorned her attempts to befriend him, had suspected her of ulterior motives—and now, lying with her in the grass, the depth of how _wrong_ he had been steals his breath. The Inquisitor is a remarkable woman: ever curious, considerate of others, astonishing in the depths of her kindness. He himself had tried to take away what has made her so different.

If this is only way he can repay her for his ingratitude, he is content.

She smiles so hard her cheeks dimple. The lightning hums in her palm as she reaches for his hand with her left one. “Solas, _thank you,_ ” she says, her eyes shining as she squeezes his hand. She laughs to herself, a breathless little giggle that makes him smile, and she eases to her feet, cradling the orb of electricity as though it is a precious thing. “I—I have to show Dorian—thank you, Solas, really, I don’t know what to say—”

“‘Thank you’ will suffice,” he says, quietly, and she laughs as she stands fully. She bids him goodnight and carefully makes her way back to camp, her frame lit by silver moonlight and white-blue electricity.

Solas watches her go, and very nearly smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> "Sheltered Garden" by H.D.


	5. Chapter 5

He does not notice her arrival until he smells citrus. Solas looks up from his translation and watches as she leans on his desk, a cup of cocoa in her hands. With a nod of acknowledgement, he returns his attention to the book before him. “What are you doing?” she asks, peering curiously at the volume on his desk.

“I am aiding Monsieur D’Onterre,” says Solas, placing his quill in its inkwell. He leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers, tilting his head up to regard her fully. “He has made a valiant effort, true, but he confuses his tenses and uses overly complicated sentence structures. Elvhen is a language of ideas, of imagery and intent. It is not meant to be translated literally.”

“How do you know so much Elvhen?”

Solas does not look at her. “I have told you that I consult spirits, did I not? Spirits of Knowledge, and Curiosity, and Wisdom. All have shared their insights with me.” It is true; it simply does not apply to her question.

“That’s fascinating,” she replies. Solas looks up at her. She half-smiles and sips at her cocoa.

“I have yet to see what content you spoke of,” Solas tells her. “These are all poems of usual subjects—love and hate, life and death, joy and despair. Where is the scandal in that?”

“Did you read thirty-one yet?” she asks. Solas shakes his head. Her smile widens and she sets down the cocoa, leaning closer to pull the book away from him. She takes a moment to read his notes, then flips through the pages. When she finds her quarry, she returns the book to him. Solas takes it and glances down at the _31_ printed in blocky letters.

He reads the first line, and recognition flares. “Oh,” he breathes, quietly. The further he reads, the more convinced he grows. A heavy weight settles in his chest when he reaches the last stanza. “Vhenaeris.”

“What?”

“Nothing of import,” he assures her. His chest still feels tight as he reads Vhenaeris’s poem again, wondering why this one has survived over any others. It had been one of her earliest poems, before her genius had truly blossomed. She had been a poetic master, beloved of Mythal, and her works read aloud had made Sylaise weep.

And now all that remains of her brilliance is a half-translated poem.

He does not realize how tightly he’s clenching his fists until the Inquisitor covers his palm with her own. “Solas. What’s wrong?”

 _This world_ , he wants to reply. _Everything in this world is wrong._

He swallows and looks at the Inquisitor. “Apologies. You caught me in a reverie.”

“What, from the poem?”

“Yes.”

She arches an eyebrow, and looks doubtful. Solas frowns. “It is a better poem than most.”

“Uh. Okay. I take it the poem’s not actually about—” she leans over to glance at the poem, “—‘an unquenchable fire under my skin, between my legs and within my heart, as I gaze upon your smoldering eyes’?”

He had not even thought to glance at the Common translation, and so her words take him aback. “ _What?_ ” he asks.

He skims D’Onterre’s words. Every Common couplet grows more lecherous, and by the end, it is no better than a bawdy tavern song. He grits his teeth and reaches for his quill, itching to do Vhenaeris justice, but at the last moment, he stays his hand. He balls his hand on his desk instead and shakes his head, unable to keep his disgust from his tone. “No. This translation is poorly done.”

An empire further destroyed because of a single man’s incompetence.

His frown deepens at his trail of thought. _It would not have been destroyed in the first place were it not for me_ , he thinks, bitterly.

A touch of her hand brings him back. “Read it to me,” she encourages, rolling onto her tiptoes to straddle the edge of his desk. “What it actually says.”

Solas watches her for a long moment. It is an innocuous poem—and, if nothing else, he would not mind sharing what remained of his people’s art with her. She is a worthy recipient of it.

He settles into the chair and pulls the book closer. “He’s equal with the gods, that man who sits across from you, face to face, close enough to sip your voice’s sweetness. And what excites my mind—your laughter, glittering. So when I see you… for a moment, my voice goes. My tongue freezes. Fire, delicate fire, in the flesh. Blind, stunned, the sound of thunder in my ears. Shivering with sweat, cold tremors over the skin; I turn the color of dead grass, and I’m an inch from dying.”

He lowers the book and looks at her. She blinks when they make eye contact, and quickly breaks it to glance down at her cocoa. Her cheeks are pink. “Huh,” she says. “Well, _something_ got lost in translation.”

“Indeed,” Solas replies, and looks back at the poem again. If only the humans knew what they had found. If their historians truly cared about the past, their scholars would have scrambled to preserve this poem’s original copy.

But far be it from the knife ears to have some semblance of creative talent.

“Okay, so clearly D’Onterre didn’t know what he was doing. What about this one?” She reaches over again, flipping through the pages. Solas sits back in his chair to get a better look at her face. There’s a faint hint of a smile in the bow of her lips, a shine of anticipation in her eyes. It makes him—curious.

She finds her poem, and shows him the page. Solas skims the first Elvhen stanza, then the translation, and clears his throat. His ears burn as he looks back to her. “Ah.” He stops, staring at her, and she raises an expectant eyebrow. “Yes. That is—that is the gist of it.”

She bites on her lower lip, her eyes crinkling in the corners as she smiles. “Good to know. I’d like to read your translations of these someday, Solas. You clearly know more Elvhen than D’Onterre ever did.” Her smile falters. “If that’s all right with you.”

“I do not mind,” he says, after a long moment. She grins again, her cheeks dimpling, and pushes herself off his desk. She takes a long sip of her cocoa and pats his shoulder.

“Don’t forget to eat, Solas,” she calls, heading for the library. “The cooks made some sweetrolls this morning. They’re delicious!”

Solas watches the sway of her body as she walks, then shakes his head and laughs quietly. He waits to hear her quiet conversation with Dorian, then stands and heads for the kitchens.

When he returns, she is still in the library. An hour later, while he is working further on the mural, she comes down the stairs, her steps punctuated by heavy, discontented sighs. “Enjoy your lessons!” Dorian calls from above. She lifts her head and scowls at him. Her gaze then falls on Solas, then on the mural.

“Oh, wow,” she breathes. “Solas, that is amazing.”

He smiles. “Thank you, Inquisitor.”

“I’d really love to watch you paint, but I need to go see Josephine to practice my diplomacy. We’ll talk later!”

Solas furrows his brow, concentrating entirely on the picture before him. “Dareth shiral, my friend,” he says, somewhat absently.

She stops at the same time he does, her head turning toward him and her eyes widening. Solas stills his brush and stares at her, as caught off-guard by his words as she is.

And then, her eyes soften, and she smiles. The knots in Solas’s stomach ease, somewhat, and he manages to return the gesture. Once she is gone, he breathes out a sigh, forcing himself to loosen his grip on his paintbrush.

Friends.

Yes.

It… it is strange, but not foreign. He can— _should_ —befriend her. It may even guarantee him the orb, in time; she might be more willing to return it to him if she considers him a trusted companion, rather than a distant acquaintance. And then he will have the power to strip this world to its barest foundations and rebuild it anew.

That thought reassures him, and he resumes his work on the mural.

 

 

 

By the time nightfall arrives, his mural is completed and drying. Solas is quietly translating when quick footsteps catch his attention.

“Hi Solas!” the Inquisitor greets, rushing past him to go find Dorian. “Dorian, did you know it was Skinner’s birthday? The tavern’s throwing a party. Hawke and Varric are drinking the Chargers under the table, and Maryden found a guy who can play the drums—c’mon, _c’mon_ , we have to go back!”

“Oh, all right, if you insist,” Dorian grumbles. Heartbeats later, they are in the rotunda. The Inquisitor urges him ahead and cocks a hip against the desk. Her bun and braid are mostly intact, but there are many loose strands that have escaped her pins to frame her face.

“Want to come, Solas?” she asks, pink-cheeked with laughter. “It’ll be fun! Krem promised to dance on the tables with me.”

Solas returns his quill to its inkwell. “I am not one for such festivities, Inquisitor,” he says, evenly. _Not anymore, at least._

Her face falls. “Are you sure? There will be card games, too. Cullen and Cassandra aren’t drinking, if that’s what you’re worried about. They can teach you diamondback!” After a brief pause, while Solas mulls it over, she sits on the edge of his desk. “I just don’t want you to be alone, that’s all.”

Ah—why does everything she say catch him off-guard? “I… thank you, Inquisitor, but I must decline. I have much work to do.”

They both fall silent. She does not move to get off of his desk, and he does not reach for his quill. For a long moment, they stare at each other.

She is the first one to look away, this time, and gets off of the desk. “You know where we’ll be,” she says, patting his shoulder. “Have fun, Solas.”

He waits until her footsteps fade, then sighs again, his leg muscles twitching as he debates whether or not he should change his decision. It has been so long since he simply socialized, and the Chargers’ presence would certainly make it an enjoyable night.

And yet.

 _Shadows,_ he reminds himself, yet this time he only half-believes it. He rests his hands on his armrests, and simply moves closer to the desk. He takes his quill in hand and resumes his work, listening to the increasing volume of laughter and music outside.

Solas works until his candle is a stump, close to extinguishing on its own. That is often a sign that he has worked too long into the night. Solas finishes the last stanza, then stops his inkwell and lays his quill aside. Leaning back into his chair, he rubs a hand over his face.

A hiccup from outside, then a poorly muffled wail, catches his attention. Solas looks up from his book to see, through the open door, the Champion and the Inquisitor staggering side-by-side past the doorway. The Inquisitor is sobbing openly at her companion’s side.

Without thinking, Solas rises and walks out of the rotunda. The Champion hears his footsteps and stops; Solas comes to a stop in front of the duo and clasps his hands behind his back, arching an eyebrow.

The Champion smiles, an explanation ready. “Someone has to get the drunk-ass friends home safe.”

“How _admirable_ of you,” Solas retorts, his gaze sliding to the Inquisitor. Her hair has come undone; her bun is gone, replaced by loose black curls. Her braid is no longer pinned to the side of her scalp, but sits among the waves on her shoulders. Her eyes and lips are red, and true tearstains shine on her cheeks.

He has never seen her cry before. The sight of her distress affects him more than it should.

But any friend would be concerned.

“She got drunk with the Chargers,” says the Champion. It is a flimsy excuse.

Solas clenches his jaw. “I was under the impression that you were also drinking.”

The Champion’s grin turns sly. “Blood magic has its uses.”

For an instant, Solas cannot tell if the words are a jest. He is saved an answer as the Champion continues, “I’m bringing her to her room.”

“She is in _tears_ ,” snaps Solas. “Forgive me if I doubt the purity of your intent—”

The Champion’s eyes narrow at his implication, but before anything can come of it, the Inquisitor whimpers, catching Solas’s attention at once. “It was just so _sad!_ ” she cries, sniffling and agonized. “Hawke, tell ’m whayousaid t’ me.”

The Champion sighs, then fixes a stony gaze on Solas. “She asked me about Anders. At the end of the conversation, I said, ‘Inquisitor, I hope you never fall in love with someone who puts duty first. I wouldn’t wish that kind of love on my worst enemy.’ She thought it was… poetic, that was her word. And then she started crying. And now we’re here.”

Solas swallows, his hands flexing behind his back.

“ _So_ sad,” agrees the Inquisitor, her face crumpling. Her words pull him from his reverie, and Solas steps closer to the duo.

“I will escort her to her rooms,” says Solas. The Champion looks almost relieved as the Inquisitor is transferred between them, and then beats a hasty retreat back to the tavern. The Inquisitor sighs as she walks by his side, then stumbles, her gait unsteady.

Solas catches her around the waist and pulls her upright. She grins and leans against him. “My hero,” she purrs, though her voice is still thick from her drunken grief. The candlelight in the hall catches in her gaze, giving her black eyes flickers of light on the surface, like stars.

She is…

Close. _Far_ too close.

He steps away, placing a respectable distance between them; however, the distance is not so great that he will be unable to aid her if another similar situation should arise.

Solas leads her to the door that leads to the suites, listening to her fill him in on the party that he had missed. The Qunari’s lieutenant had danced with her on the tables. The Kirkwall team—the dwarf, the Champion, and the new Warden arrival, apparently the Champion’s brother—had somehow managed to win their drinking contest against the entirety of the Chargers.

He does not even need to say anything—she takes his silence and amused half-smiles as his contributions to the conversation.

At some point, halfway up the first flight, she sits down and declares that she will sleep on the staircase. He manages to convince her that a bed will be more comfortable. It is a long and arduous journey up the ten remaining steps, punctuated by her snorting giggles, but they reach her bedroom.

She climbs into the bed with her boots still on. Solas stops her, and when she turns to him, confusion on her face, it is clear she has every intention of falling asleep with her shoes still on. Solas sighs and sits on the bed, drawing one foot into his lap. He works at the boot laces and carefully slides it off, resting it on the ground below. Her toenails are painted with a red varnish and capped with white.

She watches him as he takes off her other boot. When he places it besides its twin, he looks up and stills.

She’s scooted closer, so slowly he’d not noticed it. Carefully, she moves her leg and tucks it under her, leaning toward him. Solas goes still, his gaze on her face. She raises a hand and rests it on his shoulder. He swallows and does not move, though his heart pounds under his ribcage.

“You are so good,” she declares, her brow furrowing with her intensity. When Solas does not respond, she says again, “Solas, you’re so _good_. You’re a good man. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Not for some time, in truth. He has been longer vilified than he has been not.

Her unexpected praise shakes something loose inside his chest. The _something_ settles in his gut, a strange weight that is neither heavy nor uncomfortable.

“Ah,” he says, swallowing again. “Thank you, Inquisitor.”

“You can use my name, y’know,” she says. “Everyone else does.”

He does not respond. His shoulder burns where she had touched him. She sighs, clearly disappointed, but Solas is reasonably certain that she will not remember this exchange in the morning.

“G’night, Solas,” she mumbles at last, snuggling deeper into the pillows. Solas waits until her breaths turn slow and deep, but even then, he cannot bring himself to rise and leave her room until some time after. 

 

 

 

The arcanist is a vibrant dwarf, Solas muses, running his hand over his new staff. It is fully carved and sanded, polished so the wood gleams, with a wicked blade at the end. The arcanist had gaped over its beauty, and been eager to assist him choose a focusing crystal. All the while, she had asked him dozens of questions about the Fade and its nature.

Vibrant, yes. Curious. Endearing, even.

The howling wolf carries a fire crystal in its jaw, and the folds of its scruff glow with the arcanist’s enhancements; supposedly, they are meant to aid in additional damage. The blade is silverite, finely sharpened and pointed at the end.

“This is a marvelous piece,” he praises. The door opens with an echo louder than the waterfall, and soon he hears the Inquisitor’s soft humming. “Good afternoon, Inquisitor.”

The Inquisitor smiles at him. Her hair is down today, graced with a silver ribbon. “Is it afternoon already?”

“How is your head?”

She shrugs. “Can’t complain.”

The arcanist blinks. “Wait. Magic can’t cure hangovers?”

The Inquisitor laughs. “Regular magic can’t cure illnesses in the body. Mages can cure external wounds, sure, or soothe the internal hurts with temporary cures, but we have to suffer through hangovers and colds like anyone else.”

“That’s so interesting! I wonder why that is? Ooh, maybe, it’s—”

“I heard we had some new armor, Dagna,” says the Inquisitor, smiling.

The arcanist laughs. “Oh, yes! Sorry, I got a bit excited there. New armor for the entire Inner Circle, commissioned to your specifications, Your Worship. It’s over here. Hey, Solas, since you’re here, you want to try yours on?”

“I was unaware the Inquisitor commissioned new armor,” Solas replies, turning his gaze toward her.

“We’re going to the Western Approach soon,” she says, crossing her arms. “We have a lead on the Grey Wardens. Carver and Hawke have already left. I decided to give the team a day off to recover from their hangovers. But if we have to fight the Grey Wardens—that’ll be tough. We need the equipment for it.”

The arcanist returns with a bundle of clothes, tied together with a leather cord. His name is written in a neat script. He takes it, and she points to a black room divider in the corner of the cave. “You can change back there! We’ll be here. Naturally.”

Solas first removes his necklace and hands it and his staff to the Inquisitor, then moves to the divider.

The armor is a complete set. Soft black lambswool gloves, fingerless to the first knuckle, to prevent the skin from rubbing raw. A silverite shoulder guard on his left side, padded by an extra sleeve underneath it. Woolen-and-cotton leggings and length of wolf fur for added warmth. His cotton beige overlayer brushes against the back of his knees, which are further protected by additional guards.

With every piece he wears, he feels more protected, and wonders what type of magic the arcanist had somehow woven into the fabric. She is not a mage, but her ability to manipulate the magic of lyrium without aid is extraordinary.

Solas emerges, brushing a hand down the soft wolf pelt draped across his body. “Thank you, Inquisitor,” he says, lifting his head. “This was… quite unexpected.”

“Wait,” she says, and steps forward, the cords of his necklace entwined between her hands. Solas lowers his head and she drapes it over his neck, adjusting the jawbone until it rests against the center of his chest. Solas looks up and she steps back, smiling as she gazes at him. “Perfect.”

The arcanist claps her hands. “Oh! Inquisitor, I have something for you too!”

That catches her off-guard. “What?”

The arcanist nods, heading toward her stacks of clothing. She picks out a blue-and-silver ensemble and brings it back to the stunned Inquisitor. “Vivienne heard about the commissions and got one for you. I think it’s beautiful. Try it on!”

The Inquisitor looks uncertain, but she goes.

She emerges wearing soft black doeskin leggings and a pale blue robe threaded through with silver. The robe swishes around her ankles, the skirt splitting into two layers at the hip; its collar, dyed dark blue, reaches her chin. Two silverite shoulder guards and her belt are the only pieces of metal in the entire outfit. The centerpiece of her belt is engraved with the Eye of the Inquisition, and has a clasp for her spellbook. A blue gemstone rests on her sternum, visible through folds of fabric.

She’s moved her silver ribbon so it is a headband, not mere decoration; Solas cannot help but think it looks like a solitary ray of moonlight trapped in her hair. A woman crafted from the moon and the ocean. Beautiful, yes, but certain to attract the gaze of every enemy on the battlefield.

Of course the Enchanter would be more concerned with looks than pragmatism.

“Dagna, this is a dress,” the Inquisitor says. It’s true—if she had worn an underskirt with this armor, rather than leggings, Solas would have come to that exact conclusion.

The arcanist beams, undeterred. “I made some tweaks to the material—it reinforces your barriers a lot more than it did before. So long as that armor can detect _some_ kind of barrier around it, it will be like someone’s trying to hack through silverite. Add that to how strong your barriers are, and you’re guaranteed protection!”

The Inquisitor arches an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving. “Does it have to sense _my_ barriers?” she asks. The arcanist shakes her head.

“You could test it, if—” she gasps, eyes going wide. She clasps her hands in front of her and turns her pleading gaze toward Solas. “Oh, could you test it, please?”

Solas almost says no, but the arcanist is already pressing his staff into his hands. He sighs, and turns to the Inquisitor, who responds by raising a barrier. Hints of blue glow along her body, clinging as tightly as a second skin. He stops in front of her and raises his staff, carefully resting the tip of the blade against the soft curve of her belly, just above her belt.

When he presses harder, his staff does not budge. Solas’s eyes widen, slightly, and he pulls his staff back and thrusts it forward. The blade scrapes off of the surface of the barrier, as if he has tried to attack a rock. Solas hums under his breath and retreats a few steps, summoning a flame. When he shoots the fireball toward her, she extends her barrier, and it dissipates halfway.

Her face is radiant when she smiles. “Dagna, this is—this is amazing! I’ll have to thank Vivienne for being so thoughtful.”

“And if she is Smited?” Solas asks, clasping one hand behind his back. “What then, Arcanist? Those robes will do little to protect her.”

Understanding dawns in the Inquisitor’s eyes; she speaks before the arcanist can respond. “Oh, I wondered what that was for.” She pulls the flaps of her robe aside, exposing two daggers strapped to the outsides of her thighs. She laughs a little as she lets the robe fall back in place. “Guess I’ll have to learn how to use those, too.”

She disappears behind the divider to change. Her wrist appears as she tosses the robe across the top of the divider. Moments later, the leggings follow it. “What does this necklace do, Dagna?”

The arcanist is fiddling with a sword; she does not even look up as she answers. “I’ve called it the Amulet of Death Syphon! It increases your healing magic and gives you more stamina when you kill an enemy.”

“Huh. Useful.” The Inquisitor pokes her head around the edge. “Speaking of, when do you want to take another look at the Anchor?”

“Oh, well, if you’re free after this, I’d love to try to puzzle it out a bit more!”

A new idea crosses his mind. Perhaps—what if the Anchor had influenced her?

Solas mulls it over as he changes into his tunic and leggings, as he carefully folds his armor and returns it to the arcanist’s table. Yes. It does make sense, in retrospect.

The Inquisitor and the arcanist both bid him goodbye, and he returns their farewell, distracted as he is. He returns to his rotunda and sits at the desk, staring at the grains in the wood without truly seeing.

Perhaps his magic had… changed her, however unintentionally; perhaps it had oriented her to a way of thinking the Anchor found favorable.

Such an explanation sounds ridiculous in his head, and yet it seems to be the only explanation. Because an Andrastian, a Circle Mage, and a human—it would have stunned him if she had had even one of those qualities and still maintained such divergent views from her race’s norms. But all three _together_ …

He resolves to ask the Inquisitor herself, once they have free time. The reassurance clears his mind enough that he can resume his translations.

 

 

 

When the Inquisitor asks him if he would like to accompany her to the Western Approach, he does decline, and she takes Dorian in his place. Dorian, Cassandra, Cole, the dwarf, and the da’len accompany her to the desert wasteland. Skyhold is quiet, and he finds a strange peace working on the fresco, and researching the oddities this world with no one to give him a second glance.

He even finds a poem, for when the Inquisitor returns. His current plan is to give her the poem, and then inquire—privately—about her nature before and after the Mark. Perhaps she can determine his hypothesis, one way or another.

Instead, there is a commotion in the middle of the night, audible through his open bedroom window and loud enough to rouse him from the Fade. Solas dresses quickly, and enters the Great Hall in time to see the Inquisitor stride through the doors, her advisers on her side.

“How quickly can we get our forces there, Cullen?” she asks.

The Commander shakes his head. “Impossible to say. Even assuming Josephine’s letter reaches that noble in time, it could take up to three weeks.”

The Inquisitor scowls, peeling off her gloves. Dirt is on her cheeks and her hair is matted with blood and sweat. Her gaze lands on Solas and her stormy expression abates, somewhat. She raises a hand toward him then turns to the Commander. “That’s not good enough. Every day that passes, the Grey Wardens grow more corrupted, and Corypheus’s army grows. We have to stop them before his forces grow too strong.”

“My dear, what has happened?” the Enchanter asks. She holds a candle and wears a robe, but the grace of her carriage, even in nightclothes, carries a power not to be denied. “I have never seen you in such a state.”

The Inquisitor’s smile is a brittle, sharp thing, the likes of which he has never seen from her. Her eyes are cold. “The Grey Wardens are raising a demon army. They’re working for Corypheus, and they’re killing themselves in the process.”

“We should discuss this matter in the War Room,” suggests the ambassador, delicately. She is also in her nightclothes, her braid draped over one shoulder. “Perhaps allow everyone to refresh themselves and reconvene in half an hour?”

The Inquisitor sighs and nods. “I’ll see you then.”

The Great Hall empties. The Inquisitor runs both of her hands through her hair, then heads for the garden. Solas follows her, his hands behind his back. She glances at him, but does not speak, not until she kneels beside a flowering shrub and starts picking flowers.

“What are you doing?” he asks, once she’s moved on to her third bush.

“I’m going to press these later,” she replies. “Sit with me, Solas. How can I help?”

He hesitates for only a moment before he sits. The mountain air has a crisp chill to it, but a simple internal heating spell averts the worst of it. Solas gazes at the Inquisitor while she carefully selects her blooms.

He should ask her, now, while they have the time. But her brow is furrowed and her eyes are hard as she bloodies her fingertips on the flowers’ thorns. After the third time she pricks her thumb and her only response is a flinch and a mumbled curse, Solas reaches out and touches the silver cuff links on her wrist.

She stills, looking at him. She is in her armor, he realizes, belatedly; he had forgotten she’d received a new set, and the lack of blood on the fabric had not hinted to its true purpose. Her hair is down, held back by the force of a single silver ribbon. It shines white in the light of the half-moon.

“What troubles you, Inquisitor?” he asks. She has so often listened to him, it would not be a hardship to extend her the same courtesy.

It is something that friends do for each other, after all.

She shakes her head, distracted. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I was just thinking… I have an uncle who joined the Grey Wardens. He’s a mage. Threw himself into his studies and petitioned his Knight-Commander to leave the Circle to join the Order. When I heard about the Hero being a mage and saving Ferelden, I thought—I thought that I could be like the Hero and my uncle. But now…”

“It is an organization,” he assures her. “Organizations are inherently susceptible to corruption, no matter how pure a purpose. What was their reasoning for joining Corypheus?”

Her laugh is hollow, empty of any true mirth. When she looks at him, he spots three new freckles splashed across her nose. Newly gained from the Western Approach, perhaps, but enchanting all the same. “That’s the thing. They were tricked. The Wardens thought that if they could just storm the Deep Roads with their pet demons and kill the Old Gods before they died from the Calling, they’d end the Blights, and their sacrifice would have been worth it.”

Solas stills, dropping his hand. “What?”

He could not have heard her correctly. The Wardens wished to kill the uncorrupted Old Gods? They did not even know what the Old Gods were, nor what they had agreed to do for him. Yet their ignorance would not stop them from marching into the Deep Roads and slaying the Old Gods like beasts.

The entire idea is—unnerving. Madness. For a heartbeat, he doubts the truth of her words, and wishes he had been there in person, to verify the matter himself. But then he shakes his head, dismissing his disbelief, and turns his attention toward her once more.

“I don’t know how to feel about it either,” she admits. She picks up a flower and twirls its stem between two fingers. “On one hand, they were only doing what they thought was right. But—they killed people, Solas. They destroyed themselves for this terrible, all-encompassing goal. The end does not justify the means.”

“Inquisitor, we are ready,” the ambassador calls from the doorway. She stands with a sigh, the flowers still clasped in her hands; Solas can see faint lines of blood on the pads of her fingers from where the thorns had pricked her.

It worries him, that she is too upset to notice it. Or perhaps she does notice it, and does not care—and that is far worse.

Solas gets to his feet as well, and gently stops the Inquisitor. He heals the minuscule cuts on her hands. “Do not be discouraged, Inquisitor,” he advises. “You have faced worse trials than this.”

This time, her smile is soft around the edges, and her eyes do not bear that hard edge. Some of the tightness in his chest eases at the familiar sight. She shifts her small bouquet to her right hand and places her left on his arm. “Thank you, Solas,” she says, quietly. “Get some rest. You’ll need it. It’s going to be a long few weeks.”

 

 

 

The Inquisitor leans over a candlelit map spread across the table, surrounded by her Inner Circle. Pointing to places on the battlemap, she speaks urgently, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Hawke will provide ground support with the Chargers, Sera, and Blackwall. Dorian, Cass, Cole, Varric and I will go with Carver. We’ll go after Clarel. Vivienne and Solas, I’m counting on you two to keep as many soldiers alive as possible. The fewer letters I have to write to families, the better.”

“Of course, my dear.”

“If you have any questions, go see Cullen. Get some sleep, guys. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

One by one, his companions depart. Solas remains, his hands clasped behind his back, and waits for the tent to empty. When he is alone with the Inquisitor, she straightens. “How can I help, Solas?”

“I would prefer to be with you, if possible,” Solas says, evenly, though his heart hammers. She has never left him behind before, not unless he wished it. The thought of not knowing how she would fare over the course of the battle—it does not sit well with him. “My healing skills are adequate at best, and the Inquisition has plenty of healers in my stead. The Enchanter would not be without support.”

“I need you with the soldiers, Solas. We need healers to keep them on their feet. I don’t know where this ‘I’m not that good at healing’ is coming from, because you’re the second best healer on this whole team.” She steps closer, tilting her chin up. “I’ll be fine with the others. You just have to trust me—”

She is so close he can smell her citrus perfume underneath sweat and sunbaked leather. He unclasps his hands from behind his back and drops them to his sides, unable to stop himself from fisting his hands.

Why does she insist on placing others before herself? Why is she so selfless, so _good?_ Her greatest qualities are also her greatest weaknesses. She cannot see, of course; she cannot see that everything would be for naught if he lost the Anchor—if he lost _her_ —

His eyes narrow. “It is not a matter of trusting you.”

“Then what is it?” she asks. Though her tone remains even, her eyes flash in challenge.

“I do not trust them to keep you _safe!_ ”

That makes her blink and step back, her hip bumping against the table. “You—care?”

That should not sting as much as it does, for all he deserves it. “Of course I care!” Solas exclaims, something rough and unnamable in his voice. He inhales and softens his tone, looking away. “Of course I care. You… you have changed _everything_ —”

Her quiet exhale is the only warning he gets. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her step forward. A heartbeat later, her fingertips are on his chin, turning his head toward her. He sees only a brief glimpse of the stars in her eyes before the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> Sappho 31
> 
> I should probably mention that I have a [tumblr](http://www.cedarmoons.tumblr.com) and you are more than welcome to prompt me if you'd like to see more of this universe. :)


	6. Chapter 6

Her mouth is very warm, and her lips are slightly chapped.

Solas is so stunned he does not know how to respond. Indeed, he cannot respond, not when he can only feel the heat of her pressed against him.

She pulls away, her dark, dark eyes scanning over his face. Her hands drop, and he aches for their warmth. When he does not move, only stares at her, she pinks. “Oh, shit. Oh, no, shit, I didn’t—I thought—I just ruined _everything_ , didn’t I—”

Her kiss is a burning ghost on his lips. In some distant corner of his mind, Solas knows that he is not moving, has not moved. He knows that he should tell her something—she had misread him, perhaps; that is what he _knows_ he should say.

But she is…

She turns away, mortified and beautiful, and he cups her cheek. Her breath hitches, a quiet sound, but it shivers down his spine. Her eyes meet his, candlelight flickering on her face, and she swallows.

He should step away. He should lower his hand and leave. But, oh, how he _wants_. Her face is so warm, and her lips look—soft. Soft as the rest of her. His jaw works in silence and his thumb brushes against the beauty marks underneath her eye.

 _Human,_ he thinks, in an attempt to discourage the weaker parts of himself, the parts that long to discard the mantle of Fen’Harel and the weight of his duty. She is human. She should be the reminder of all the People have lost; she should be the representative of the race that snuffed out his people’s last, gasping breaths.

Should be, but is not.

He shakes his head, just slightly, and steps away, lowering his hand. “Apologies,” he says. “I should not…” He swallows, unable to tear his gaze from her face. He cannot linger in this tent, not while the ghost of her kiss burns on his lips and his hands itch to hold her properly. He cannot linger, but neither can he bring himself to move.

He is caught.

“Solas,” she whispers. The sound of his name on her lips snaps the tether holding him back; Solas surrenders with a quiet groan, stepping forward and fisting his hands in her hair as he pulls her toward him, slanting his mouth over hers. She gasps, mouth falling open, and Solas does not hesitate to taste her.

She tastes like mint leaves. It should not surprise him, as he had seen her chewing them for the better part of the day, but it does. Her hands clutch at the front of his armor, and her hip bumps against the table. Solas pushes his knee between her parted thighs, drunk on her taste and her warmth. One of her hands leave his armor to balance against the table, and the other one clenches in his furs, clinging to him.

Her whimper is soft, the sweetest thing he has heard in aeons.

Solas pulls away to breathe, a quick inhalation of citrus that burns his lungs, and then he is kissing her again, his hands tightening in her hair as he deepens the kiss and drinks his fill. One of his hands moves to rest on her waist. He lifts his thigh, pressing it against her, and drags her bottom lip between his teeth, sucking it into his mouth. Her moan is answered by his own, and he lowers the hand on her waist to cup the curve of her ass.

It has been so _long_ ; it would be the easiest thing in the world, to become drunk on her taste and lost in her warmth—he inhales another sharp burst of citrus and the subtler scent of candle wax, and as it stings his nostrils, he has a startling moment of clarity.

What is he doing? _What is he doing?_

He opens his eyes and tears himself away, leaving her balancing on unsteady legs, half-on and half-off of the table. Her hair is mussed, lips swollen red, wide eyes black in the golden light of the tent. Her breathing is ragged as she stands upright and stares at him, touching her lips with shaking fingertips.

“Solas…”

He walks out of the tent. She does not follow him.

  
  


Adamant is a horror.

Without magic, the shemlen have resorted to barbaric practices, using blades and arrows and all other manners of contraptions that are meant to shatter bone and crack open bodies. Elvhenan’s battles had been cleaner, though the death tolls were not so dissimilar.

Solas works with the Enchanter behind the front lines, caring for soldiers who are brought back alive; he saves mana where he can, splinting bone and using salves rather than utilizing more complicated healing spells. He ignores the soldiers’ cries of pain, ignores the steady hammering of the trebuchets as they batter the fortress walls. He focuses only on the blood that coats his hands, and thinks of how to staunch the flow of it.

Time passes. It could be minutes, hours, days; the thing that breaks the monotony of battle is the Champion’s voice, simultaneously outraged and worried. “Where is my brother? Where’s Carver Hawke? Has anyone seen him?”

Solas does not hear the response, but he does hear the Champion’s answer: “What do you mean he joined the Inquisitor? He wasn’t supposed to—where is she now? Damn it, Carver!”

“Enchanter,” Solas starts, reaching for a semi-clean rag to wipe his hands. The Enchanter downs her third bottle of lyrium and begins to remove an arrow from an unconscious woman’s stomach.

“If you’re going after her, my dear, at least send in a replacement. I am not omnipotent.”

Solas leaves the tent, and finds the Champion pacing outside. Adamant’s gates are broken open, its walls aflame and covered in ladders, but the Wardens are still resisting. “Champion,” he calls, and the hero of Kirkwall looks up with narrowed eyes. “I will accompany you to search for your brother, if you wish.”

The Champion nods, turning around without so much as a word. Solas manages to find a healer and sends him to the Enchanter, then catches up with his new companion. The Champion is a flurry of action, a force to be reckoned with, utilizing the raw force of the Fade to crush enemies and rip demons apart—Solas tries to envision the same person who had escorted the Inquisitor back from the tavern, and cannot see any similarities.

A deafening roar grates on his ears, and Solas looks up to see Corypheus’s blighted creature cut through the dark sky. The Champion curses beside him, eyes wide, and Solas feels a sinking knot of dread settle into the pit of his stomach. The dragon settles on one of the towers and curls its tail around a griffon statue, crushing the stone between its claws.

“Hurry!” the Champion calls, and Solas dredges up an extra burst of energy to run for the fortress’s central hall. A massive rift sits in the middle of the square, twice as large as the Qunari and four times wider; Solas stops, chills running down his spine as he sees the multiple sets of eyes staring balefully back at him from the other side of the Fade.

A quick scan of the area reveals Grey Wardens and Inquisition soldiers alike fighting corrupted mages and bound demons—but there is no sign of the Inquisitor, or the brother. “Where did the Inquisitor go?” the Champion asks a wounded soldier, who manages to point toward a covered walkway.

Solas can only think of the last time the Inquisitor had fought a dragon. They had had the advantage of open terrain and daylight, then; there are no such assets now. If she fights Corypheus’s monster, she will lose.

The path following the Inquisitor’s footsteps is rife with signs of battle with the dragon: crumbled pillars, claw marks, bloodstains. There is even a large circle of soot; everything outside of the circle is a smoldering, black husk, and the stone within is pristine.

Her barrier had withstood, then. The sight of it eases some of the pressure in his chest, but Solas is not yet reassured. Until he can see evidence of the Inquis—of the Anchor’s well-being with his own eyes, his anxiety will remain.

He turns another corner, and the hallway stops at a wide arch, turning into a bridge that has no other end. The Inquisitor and her group is on the other end of the expanse; Corypheus’s beast faces them, its body crouched low, slinking along on lyrium-infected claws, its tail swinging.

Solas forgets how to breathe. He reaches for his staff, but a blast of lightning erupts underneath the dragon. At first, he thinks that the Inquisitor had placed a glyph underneath it, but then he sees Grey Warden armor underneath the hulking mass of gray scales.

The dragon screams, its flesh smoking from the lightning, and lifts from the bridge. Another crack of lightning arcs across its wings, and it lands behind the Inquisitor’s party, its weight knocking off several large chunks of stone.

The bridge shudders so violently the pillars beside Solas shake. He watches the Inquisitor’s head snap up, and she yells at her companions to run. They sprint forward, and the bridge begins to give way. Stone jolts under their feet, and Solas sees the Champion’s brother trip and fall to his knees.

“Carver!” the Champion shouts, sprinting forward. Solas does not think to follow, not until he sees the Inquisitor look over her shoulder. She sees the brother and turns, forgoing her own safety to help the man she should have left for dead.

Damn her! _Damn her!_

The bridge shudders again, the stonework groaning under the strain of its impending collapse. It throws the brother and the Inquisitor both back to the ground. The dwarf has turned around, now, as has Cassandra. Solas Fade-steps past the both of them, but another jolt sends him to his knees and shakes loose another few blocks to plummet into the cavern below.

The stone underneath the Inquisitor’s feet gives way, and she turns white in fear as the foundation she stands on begins to crumble. Her gaze locks on Solas’s; her lips part on his name—

She falls.

The noise that escapes him is outraged, animalistic; raw. He lunges forward until he is stretched upon his stomach, reaching out mindlessly—and by some miracle, he catches her. His hands close on her wrist and pull, and the Anchor cracks in her palm.

Solas opens his eyes, unaware he had closed them, and focuses on her. She dangles above the depthless canyon, kept alive only because of his grip on her palm. “Solas,” she says, and her voice is very small. “Solas, let go, get back to safety.”

“I will not,” he says, grabbing her sleeved wrist with his second hand. He tries to lift her, but she is dead weight, and they do not get very far.

Cassandra drops to her knees beside him. The Inquisitor’s staff is in her hands. She extends the staff’s end. “Inquisitor, grab this, if you can.”

The Inquisitor is shaking, and her palm is clammy in Solas’s. She reaches for the staff, but her fingers miss the polished black wood. She trembles, her breaths coming in short, sharp bursts. Tears shine in her eyes when she looks back at them. “I—I can’t. I can’t!”

“ _Try!_ ” Solas snarls. She makes another effort, but fails again. When she blinks, tears spill down her cheeks. Cassandra leans forward, and the dwarf and Champion both hold her ankles to keep her steady. Cole is on the verge of tears behind him, his words frantic and his voice high-pitched, but Solas cannot bring himself to listen to the spirit’s words.

“You can do it, Firefly,” the dwarf encourages.

“I will not let you fall,” Solas vows. The Inquisitor’s fingers slip down his palm, and Solas readjusts his grip on her sleeve, whispering heated Elvhen curses under his breath. Cassandra extends the staff once more, her jaw set in determination.

The Inquisitor reaches again, and this time her fingers close around the crescent moon curve of her staff. Solas and Cassandra pull back at the exact same time, and when the Inquisitor’s shoulders appear over the bridge, the Champion grabs the Inquisitor under her arms and hauls her to safety.

“We’ve got you,” the Champion murmurs. The Inquisitor’s blank expression falters; terror bleeds through the cracks of her mask. In heartbeats, she is weeping, great, shuddering sobs that wrack her shoulders and rip gasps from her throat.

Dorian is there in a moment, whispering something to her, and she sobs all the harder as she wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his bright yellow silks. Solas rubs his hand down his face and tries to breathe, so that the tension thrumming through his veins can drain from his body.

He had almost lost her. Almost lost the Anchor. The fact that the Inquisitor still lives is a blessed relief, a balm upon the fevered strain that locks his muscles and rob his lungs of breath.

A solitary groan is their only warning. The Inquisitor’s heaving breaths still. Solas looks up, reaching for his staff on instinct, and feels the stone buckle underneath him. On an impulse, he glances at the Inquisitor, only to find her already staring at him.

For a moment, the world holds its breath as they gaze at each other.

Then the bridge gives way, and they fall into the abyss.

 

Solas lands on his feet. Magic overflows in his veins, and it is such an _old_ feeling he cannot help but smile. The Fade is raw, and present, and… very green. It smells like ozone, like the electrical scent that accompanies Dorian’s spells.

“Are we dead?” someone asks. Solas slowly rises to his feet. The brother is standing perpendicular beside him, one hand raised toward his two-handed sword as though he wants to slice through the rocks. The Champion stands upside-down just a few paces from the Inquisitor.

The Champion glances around, one eyebrow rising. “If we are, the Chantry owes me an apology. This looks nothing like the Maker’s bosom.”

“No,” Solas breathes. His nerves sing with the sheer amount of magic surrounding him. “We’re in the Fade. The Inquisitor opened a rift. We came through, and survived.”

His gaze slides across the horizon, and he sees the Black City. This close, he can make out some of its individual spires. Close enough to touch. Underneath the island of rock is a tear through the green, shining the color of a midnight sky. The edges are puckered and flame golden-green, reminiscent of an infected wound. Motes of light spiral through the horizon and are sucked into the rift, as quickly as a predator consuming its prey.

Incredible.

“This isn’t the Fade I remember,” says the dwarf, somewhere behind him. “You remember last time we ended up in the Fade, Hawke?”

“Oh, how could I forget?” the Champion drawls. Solas looks over his shoulder to see his new companion frowning toward the ceiling—which, in the Champion’s case, is an outcrop of rock. “All of my closest friends showed _such_ loyalty in the face of a demon’s temptations.”

“Six years,” the dwarf sighs, shouldering his crossbow. “Six years and you’re still hung up on that. Most people would’ve… I don’t know… _moved on_ , by now.”

“Fake money, Varric,” says the Champion, more disappointed than anything else. “ _Fake money_. Have some standards at least!”

The dwarf’s laugh is deep-bellied and rich, but the lines around his eyes are tight, and he’s pulled his crossbow out of its holster. He is nervous, as is everyone in the party. Understandable, for those who have always been blind to the beauties the Fade provides.

The newfound wellspring of mana at his fingertips is a dizzying thing. He had forgotten how much he missed magic’s easy reach. Solas turns to the Inquisitor, unable to stop his small smile. And she had somehow found the focus to open a rift, to prevent them from falling to their deaths. She had pushed past her fear to use the Anchor as their salvation.

She is—extraordinary.

She does not return his smile. She is pale, clutching at her staff as though it is a walking stick rather than a weapon, and she looks ill.

Dorian touches her shoulder. “All right?” he asks, looking up to regard their surroundings. His expression is unreadable.

“The world is spinning,” she says. The Anchor flares, as sickly green as the rest of the Fade. “I—I think I need to sit down. My mana—there’s too much—”

“I feel it, too,” says the Champion. “It’s strange, but I’m not nauseous.”

Dorian huffs. “Frankly, it’s giving me a headache, but come on, sit.”

Solas watches them with a furrowed brow. The excess of magic should not make the other mages _sick_ ; it should make them more powerful, should benefit them, as their magic-starved bodies adjust to their true potentials.

“This is fascinating,” he says instead, returning his attention to the Black City. “Not the area I would have chosen, of course, but to physically walk the Fade…”

As the Inquisitor tucks her head between her knees, the dwarf does a headcount. “We’ve got everyone,” he says. “And, Chuckles, we get it. You like it here. You think it’s wonderful.”

Solas smiles. “Yes. Literally.”

“There was a rift in the main hall,” says the brother, short-tempered and narrow-eyed. “Can we find it again? Use it to get out?”

“Trying cannot hurt,” Cassandra acknowledges.

The Inquisitor does not move. Solas frowns and walks toward her, crouching when he reaches her side. She looks up at his approach. Sweat beads along her brow, and her skin is clammy. Solas reaches for the fresh abundance of mana and presses two fingertips to each of her temples, summoning a minor healing spell. His fingertips glow the same spring green as the Anchor, and her eyelids flutter shut.

“Perhaps this will help,” he says, softly, remembering her own cold fingertips against his temples.

“How you feeling, Firefly?” the dwarf asks. Dorian places a hand between her shoulder blades. Solas’s gaze lingers on the mage’s arm, and then he forces himself to look back at the woman in front of him.

She swallows and opens her eyes. “Better, thank you,” she says, and when her gaze locks with his, a kiss ghosts across his mouth. Solas stands up, clasping his hands behind his back and stepping away.

The Inquisitor rises to her feet and sets her gaze toward the rift on the horizon. She starts walking, and the rest of the party falls in line behind her. “It’s so nice to follow people for once,” the Champion remarks, and the dwarf’s laugh echoes through the Fade.

This corner of the Fade is far from pleasant—the omnipresent green is nauseating, and the pools of water carry a bone-chilling cold. It is likely a fear spirit’s territory; Solas comes to that conclusion after the Inquisitor touches a frozen spirit, and the entire party sees flashes of a child’s loneliness: an open door, an empty town, a garden, barren from the Blight.

Not his first choice of locations, but still mesmerizing.

His eyes stray to the Inquisitor. She is the brightest thing in the surrounding area, due to her armor and the Anchor. It will not be hard to lose track of her in the heat of battle, should anything attack them. At this point, it is only a matter of time.

They meet an old woman in Chantry robes, and Cassandra calls her the Divine. She is clearly a spirit, but the group seems more concerned if the spirit is the old woman’s, or simply an imitation. It should not matter, but Solas keeps quiet and stays on alert.

Spirits flicker into existence—her memories, supposedly. The old woman watches as the Inquisitor collects them, and visions flicker in the very air of the Fade. Solas watches her memories unfold and wonders if, perhaps, his hypothesis is still feasible. If the Anchor had changed her nature, after all, why had she interrupted the ritual to save an old woman’s life?

He will have to ask her in person, once they are alone.

“If you have any questions, come speak with me,” the old woman tells the Inquisitor.

“Do you have any regrets?” the Champion asks, fixing her with a stare. “Not one? Not, say, wanting to call an Exalted March on my city? You really had me sweating for a week or two there with that stunt.”

The old woman’s only response is a flat stare, but then the Inquisitor joins her side and they speak in low, hushed tones.

Solas turns to Cole. “How does it feel to be home?” he asks the spirit. Cole looks back at him, wide-eyed underneath the brim of his hat, and panicked.

“I—I can’t be here. Not like this! Not like _me!_ ”

“It’s all right,” Solas says, placing a hand on his shoulder. The touch calms him, but only just. “We’ll make it right.”

“This place is wrong,” Cole says. The spirit trembles under Solas’s hand. “I made me forget when I made myself real, but I know it wasn’t like _this_ —”

“You all right, Kid?” the dwarf asks.

The Inquisitor returns before Cole can answer. “I know where we need to go,” she says. Her expression softens when she sees Cole. “We’ll get you out of here soon, Cole.”

Cole takes a deep breath. “Thank you.”

All goes well. The Inquisitor insists on detours to assuage the spirits frozen in time—dreamers, Solas soon realizes, caught in the midst of their fears. Her small touches are enough to soothe them, and rouse them from the depths of their nightmares.

He cannot find the heart to disapprove of her deviations. Not when he witnesses her tuck a plush into the arm of a sleeping girl, nor when he sees her unabashed kindnesses and feels the heaviness in his chest abate at the sight of her smile.

One such journey takes them off a small path, into a clearing with a solitary eluvian. A rose blooms in front of it. The Inquisitor kneels in front of the eluvian and plucks the flower. Once the rose is uprooted, dark, rumbling laughter shivers through the air.

“What is this? A little girl, come to take back my gifts,” Corypheus drawls. No, not Corypheus. The Nightmare. “Perhaps it is I who should be afraid, facing the most powerful members of the Inquisition.”

“We need to go,” the Inquisitor says, white-faced. The flower stem breaks in half between her fingers.

The eluvian shatters behind her, and a Rage demon emerges from its broken frame. The split second it takes for the demon to roar and face them is enough for the Inquisitor to cast a barrier over the entire party and retreat. Cassandra, Cole and the brother all reach for their weapons and charge the creature.

In the middle of the fight, the Nightmare chuckles in Solas’s ear. “Hear me, Trickster! You care for nothing but victory, and so your pride shall be your death!”

Solas’s blood thunders in his ears, and he freezes the rage demon where it stands. Cassandra’s, Cole’s, and the brother’s blades are more than enough to shatter it. “Nothing is inevitable,” he spits, but the Nightmare’s laughter slides down his spine, cold and slick as oil. His heart hammers, and he unsuccessfully attempts to put the demon’s words out of mind.

When they turn back from their path to retrace their steps, Solas stops at the crest of the hill. The Inquisitor swears softly.

Elvhen await them in the valley below.

Men, women, and children, some with faces he recognizes, others he doesn’t. Vhenaeris glitters in an evening dress. A sentinel stands guard at her side, Mythal’s vallaslin writ across his brow. As though they sense his presence, all Elvhen turn their eyes upon him.

“Hello, Dread Wolf,” greets Vhenaeris. She smiles through bloody teeth.

“Welcome, Devourer of the People,” a sentinel intones, voice low and somber.

“What has he done?” a child says, quietly, pressing against his mother’s side. Wide eyes stare up at Solas. “Mamae, mamae, the Vir Dirthara is—mamae, don’t let me fall, _don’t let_ —”

His screams linger in the air long after Cassandra’s blade cuts through him. Solas watches the carnage, clutching his staff with white-knuckled fingers, wide-eyed and frozen as, one by one, his people fall.

 _No. Stop_ , he wants to say. _Stop, please. Leave them be. Kill me, if you must, but do not touch the children._

He cannot move. He cannot speak. He can only watch.

The sentinels engage the warriors, but are no match for the humans’ brute strength, and they are ultimately struck down. Vhenaeris dies with three crossbow bolts lodged in her body. Children cower before spells, and scream as electricity arcs across their bodies. A man falls to his hands and knees in front of Dorian; the skin of his back bleeds from an invisible whip’s lashes. Another lash is added every time the Tevinter lifts his staff.

All Elvhen die with accusing eyes turned toward the Dread Wolf.

“Chuckles, behind you!” the dwarf shouts. His words are far away, but they cut through the fog. Solas turns on instinct, lifting his staff and thrusting its blade out, then twisting it up, into the gut and through the lungs. A quick, clean kill.

Mythal’s gasp is a soft, pained thing.

She wears a golden nightgown, and her hair is undone for bed. She had not come dressed for battle. Solas’s gaze travels to the spreading bloodstain on her stomach. Instead of an unmarked dagger embedded in her abdomen, he sees his own staff’s blade.

Solas shakes, but he cannot release his stave, cannot even loosen his grip. He can only stare at Mythal with wide, horrified eyes. _No. No. No!_

“Pride,” she whispers. A tear slips from the corner of her eye. “What have you wrought?”

Blood trickles from the corner of her lip. Her nightgown is scarlet, now, not a trace of gold to be found. _This was my fault,_ a voice whispers, yet he is not entirely certain it is his own.

Solas swallows, but he cannot find an answer for her. She weeps as she dies, silent tears that leave silver tracks on her face. Solas pulls his staff free at last, and his hands cramp around the wood. His stomach roils at the sight of Mythal’s corpse, and he turns away.

“That wasn’t so bad,” says Dorian, cheerfully. “Spiders aren’t the worst things to fight, I suppose. We’ve certainly had more than enough experience with them.”

“Spiders?” Cassandra asks. “I saw maggots.”

She sheathes her bloody sword. Solas closes his eyes.

“Then these things must be reflections of our fears,” Dorian muses. “Fascinating. Horrifying and grotesque, but fascinating.”

His hand shakes. Pressing it to his forehead does no good. _This behavior only feeds the demon_ , he scolds himself, but when he blinks he sees Mythal on the other end of his staff blade. He tastes blood in his mouth and wonders: is it his, or that of the boy from the Vir Dirthara, or that of the slave?

 _What have you wrought?_ Mythal had asked.

 _I do not know,_  he answers, biting the inside of his cheek to stave off the hot sting of tears.

“Solas.”

He opens his eyes and sees the Inquisitor in front of him. Her eyes flicker from his face to his trembling hand, then back to his gaze. “Are you all right?” she asks. “You look shaken.”

Solas lowers his hand and fists it behind his back, digging his nails into his palm. “I am well, Inquisitor. Let us continue.”

The Inquisitor and the Champion both agree that it is strategically unsound to recover from the fight in the valley, as the lower ground gives the party a distinct disadvantage. So they press on, and the path they take winds through the mists of the Fade. At last, the straight road curves, and passes a graveyard.

The graveyard is open and large. They will have time to heal what wounds they can, recover from the fight, and prepare for the next.

The group gathers by the entrance and goes no further, sprawling on the grass. A maggot had somehow chewed through Cassandra’s armor and its sharp teeth had raked across her arm. The dwarf and the Champion exchange jokes, trying and failing to lighten the mood, and Cole rocks on the balls of his feet.

Solas reclines against a gravestone and places his staff in his lap, cleaning the blood off the blade with water and cloth until it gleams.

When the Inquisitor checks on him, she holds out her hand. “C’mon, give me your hand.”

Solas acquiesces, and she turns his palm over, examining the deep crescent marks his nails had left behind. She heals the small gouges and smiles at him when it is done. Solas watches her lips for a heartbeat, and as he meets her eyes, a ghost of a kiss presses against his mouth.

Her eyes trail from his face to the gravestone behind him, and she goes very, very still. Solas turns, and sees his own name written upon the stone. Underneath it, his epitaph is two words: _Dying Alone_.

He blinks, and checks the next gravestone, to ensure it is not another trick of Nightmare’s. There— _Cole: Despair_. Behind that— _Dorian Pavus: Temptation_. Solas looks on the other side of his gravestone, and his breath catches.

He sees her name written across a slab of stone, and underneath it is one word.

_Helplessness._

The touch of her hand brings him back. “We should leave this place be,” she says, quietly, eyes on the ground. Her cheeks are pink. “These are private things.”

“Yes,” he agrees.

He rises, and they move on.

The path takes them to the heart of the Nightmare’s lair. The rift rests on the top of a hillside. The air on the other side of the Veil is no longer the night sky, but the same orange as a burning building. A spider stands between them and the rift, three times larger than the high dragon they had fought. A thousand eyes blink, and sixteen fangs drip venom. It hisses at the sight of them, rising onto eight great legs, and somehow it increases in size. Solas looks around and sees mountains of eggs laid along the edge of the circular space.

“Perhaps I spoke too soon about the spiders,” Dorian says behind him.

“Perhaps,” the Champion agrees. “Let’s kill it.”

“You want to fight that thing?” the dwarf asks, incredulous.

“It can’t be worse than the Arishok.”

Before they can attack, the old woman turns incorporeal, and her very being shatters into a thousand golden lights. The lights attach to the Nightmare’s flesh, and the beast screams as they burn holes into its skin. The Nightmare retreats to the top of its mountainous outcrop, unreachable even by spells.

The largest egg bursts and a monstrosity emerges from it. “Let’s kill that,” the Champion suggests. Cassandra hefts her sword and charges forward, and the rest of the party springs into action.

All goes well, until the other eggs begin to hatch. “Dorian, Solas, cover the spiders!” the Inquisitor shouts. Solas turns and sees a young Elvhen woman wearing a wedding dress.

“We were going to be married at my father’s house,” she tells him in Elvhen, advancing forward. Solas cannot move. “He was going to take an eluvian to get there. And then you put up the Veil, and he could not come through. He died in the Fade alone because of _you_ , Trickster.”

“I am so sorry,” Solas whispers.

She spits on the ground. “I do not want your _apologies!_ ”

Dorian incinerates her. The last thing Solas sees of the bride is her eyes, glassy with tears.

“A little help would be nice, Solas,” Dorian calls. Solas tears his eyes from the bride’s ashes and clenches his jaw. When a child stumbles from an egg, red hair tucked behind a pair of very small, finely pointed ears, he kills her before she has the chance to look up. Once the area is clear of fearlings, Dorian and Solas work together to destroy the unhatched eggs.

The Inquisitor’s shout catches their attention. “Dorian! Solas! Go!”

Solas turns. The pathway to the rift has been cleared—the dwarf and Cole are already halfway there. Dorian sprints, and Solas follows. The spider screams as he nears the rift, and out of the corner of his eye he sees the beast crawl from its hiding space. The areas burnt by the old woman’s sacrifice are scar tissue.

Solas stops in front of the rift and turns, watching for the Inquisitor. He is easily able to identify her in the darkness, her blue armor drawing his eye. She runs, but a spider pincer slams into the ground in front of her, and the brother pulls her back.

The group retreats, staring at the Nightmare. Solas considers leaving the safety of the hill to rejoin the Inquisitor’s side, but the group shifts, turning toward each other. An argument.

The Champion grabs the brother’s head with one hand and brings him forward, kissing his forehead. The brother is screaming, face twisted in anger, but when the Champion shoves him away he goes. Solas sees a glint of metal as the Champion takes a thin dagger from its sheath and presses it against skin. Once blood wells, the hero of Kirkwall runs toward the beast. The Nightmare turns its attention to the Champion. One of its pincers moves away, clearing a path to the rift.

The Inquisitor grabs the brother, and they run. The Champion covers their retreat, eyes glowing with the power of blood magic. Endless barrages of magic cut into the Nightmare, but the spider does not hold back, spitting venom and using its pincers as blunt force.

The Inquisitor and the brother reach Solas. “Damn you, Hawke!” the brother whispers, but there is no real hatred in his words, only grief.

The Inquisitor pushes Carver through the rift and turns to him, grabbing his wrist.

“We have to go,” she croaks. “Solas, we _have to go_.”

Solas watches Hawke for a long, silent moment, then steps through the rift.

The Inquisitor follows him through, and he turns to see her jaw clenched as she closes the rift behind them. The demons die as one. Grey Wardens and Inquisition troops alike turn to see the Inquisitor rise to her feet. After a heartbeat, a deafening roar rises up, filling the empty space of the courtyard as they recognize their victory. 

“Where’s Hawke?” the dwarf asks Carver, who storms away without an answer. He turns toward the Inquisitor, wide-eyed. “Firefly, where’s Hawke?”

The Inquisitor’s face falls, and a tear trails down her cheek. She wipes it away and takes a deep breath. “Varric…”

Understanding dawns on his face. Varric holds up a hand and shakes his head. Wordless, he walks away, and the Inquisitor covers her face with a hand. Solas joins her side. “We survived,” he says, quietly. No doubt she will blame herself for Hawke’s sacrifice, or wonder what she could have done different to save the Champion. His words are an attempt to stave such thoughts off before they manifest.

She lowers her hand and smiles, not looking at him. Her eyes are red, but she does not cry. “Not all of us.”

Her back is straight and her smile is wide, triumphant. Everything about her manner is the epitome of a glorious victory, but the falsehood of it leaves a sour taste in Solas’s mouth. The troops’ celebrations ring hollowly in Solas’s ears.

Still smiling, she walks away.

Solas does not stop her.


	7. Chapter 7

After Adamant, they march to Griffon Wing Keep. There are beds there, and baths, and a secure channel to access food and supplies. The Inquisitor orders all beds be given to the wounded, and she pitches her tent in the courtyard with the rest of the troops.

Carver Hawke remains a few days, speaking to none but Varric, and he glares at the Inquisitor whenever she is within his line of sight. Whenever Solas sees the boy’s stormy expression directed toward her, he bristles. He had seen Hawke make the choice to fight the Nightmare, not the Inquisitor, and to blame her for Hawke’s choice is unwarranted.

Still, Solas cannot bring himself to speak to the Inquisitor. She had been furious after the excursion to the western wastelands. And once he’d heard of the Grey Wardens’ grievous mistake, he had been convinced that she, too, thought the Grey Wardens too dangerous to remain in Orlais. Better to send them away, where their paranoia will affect only them.

He had been wrong. He’d underestimated the depths of her soft heart—again.

He still has yet to confront her about her decision. There are still injured soldiers to care for, and fresh water to find. The Inquisitor, Solas, and the Enchanter run themselves ragged tending to the wounded; the Chargers and the rest of the Inner Circle are out on a daily basis, completing a multitude of tasks.

Including, the Commander and Carver report, keeping newfound wandering darkspawn at bay.

“Darkspawn?” the Inquisitor says. She sets an unconscious man’s leg and wipes his brow with a damp cloth. “Where are they coming from?”

Solas does not look away from the healing potions he’s brewing. The elfroot leaves in the pot curl inward, leaching red juices into the water. When it is scarlet, he will be able to add the prophet’s laurel and the mint oil.

The Commander’s leather creaks as he shifts his weight, gripping the pommel of his sword. “They’re unaffected by the poison gas,” he says. “Rylen has already completed estimates, and our Ambassador can secure the needed supplies. We could build a bridge over the pits while our forces recover, then further investigate the darkspawn activities.”

“Do it,” she says. The Commander’s armor clinks as he walks out of the tent.

Out of the corner of his eye, Solas sees the boy shift. His arms are crossed over his chest. “Inquisitor,” he ventures, his mouth twisting as though the word is poison, “my men and I can fight the darkspa—”

“No,” she says, cutting him off. She unwraps a roll of gauze and wraps it around the soldier’s ankle. Her fingers glow golden. “You need to go to Weisshaupt and inform the First Warden of Clarel’s decision. You are a senior Warden, Carver, and I won’t risk you unnecessarily. The Grey Wardens are few enough in number. They will assist in rebuilding, not fighting.”

“Fighting darkspawn is not _unnecessary risk_ —”

“Warden Hawke,” she says. Solas does not look at her, but the chill in her voice alarms him. “Either you leave with five of your men on the morrow, or all of them. The choice is yours.”

Carver storms out. The Inquisitor sighs, and as Solas steadily adds teaspoons of mint oil for taste, he sees her hang her head. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she mutters. “I should _not_ have said that. He’s going to take all the Wardens just to spite me.”

“The boy may surprise you,” Solas replies. He sets down the oil and picks up stems of prophet’s laurel. “He likely has not forgotten how merciful you were to his Order.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she says.

Solas resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, but only just. Instead, he feeds more prophet’s laurel into the brewing potion. “Some men do not deserve mercy, Inquisitor.”

Her laugh catches him off-guard. Solas turns, regarding her fully. Her hair is in its usual braided bun, though it is frizzy from the heat. She’s healing the soldier’s injury with bloodstained fingers, but she is smiling. There is just the faintest hint of a dimple etched in the corner of her cheek.

She has a secret.

“Do I amuse?” he asks at last, narrowing his eyes.

“It is interesting,” she murmurs, “that you think humiliation is mercy.”

Solas scoffs, arching an eyebrow. “It is better than the alternative.”

She hums and wipes her hands on a rag, patting the soldier once and turning away from him. “Is it? The Grey Wardens are centuries old, proud and honored. I have put the Grey Wardens under the boot of a young, upstart organization, and no nation will lift a finger to stop it. Their reputation is tarnished indefinitely. They depend on my good graces to remain alive. They could leave as free men, of course, but Warden numbers are already low—should they be expelled from southern Thedas, their Order will likely die out. I made them choose between disgrace and extinction, and they all know it.”

“The former is recoverable,” Solas says, “and kinder than they deserved.”

“Perhaps. But it is not particularly merciful.” Her smile is brittle as she stands up.

“Inquisitor,” he starts, suddenly. “Your uncle? Is he…”

“Dead,” she replies, eyes flat. “He refused to bind a demon, so the bastards slit his throat to power another’s ritual.”

She strides out. Solas turns back to the bubbling potion. The water is scarlet, and the prophet’s laurel leaves are blackened, floating on its surface. He carefully douses the fire below the pot, then removes the leaves from the potion. Behind him, another healer enters the tent to tend to the soldier.

Once the eight vials beside him are filled, Solas also leaves the tent. The small quarters are suddenly too confining, and the smell of sweat and blood and sick makes the air hard to breathe.

Outside, the sky is a clear, bright blue. The sun beats on the golden sand-blasted stones of the Keep and prickles his forehead. Solas shields his eyes against the light to watch a murder of crows cross the sky, their caws just faintly audible.

“Solas!” a voice greets. Solas lowers his hand as a shadow falls over him, blocking out the sun. The Qunari’s body is more than enough to provide its own shade.

“Iron Bull,” Solas returns, clasping his hands behind his back. “What can I do for you?”

The Qunari’s lone eye gleams. He wears no armor, just trousers and a leather belt. Blocky tattoos cover his shoulders and wind down to his biceps. Half of his chest is scar tissue. Savage though he is, he is a man who has seen the worst of war and emerged with sanity intact.

“Want to fight?”

Ah. He should have expected such a question. He _is_ speaking to the oxman, after all.

Solas sighs, looking the man up and down. “You and I would be poor sparring partners.”

The oxman’s laugh is deep, and grates on his ears. “Nah, you’d have Krem, not me. I heard you didn’t do great with that shit in the Fade. Thought you might want a good spar to take your mind off it.”

Solas’s hands fist behind his back, yet he keeps his face neutral and his body relaxed. “And who, precisely, told you such a thing?”

The Qunari cocks his head. “I get it,” he says, after a beat.

 _You do not_ , Solas thinks, but holds his tongue.

“But those ghosts are just in your head, Solas. You let them stay, they’re gonna make a home in your mind and drive you crazy. Offer’s open whenever you want to hit something.”

He steps aside, and Solas closes his eyes as the shadow moves. The oxman walks away, humming a tune under his breath. It takes only a few moments for Solas to unclench his fists, but the oxman’s words linger long after Solas returns to his duties.

By sunset, the Inquisition has secured a permanent water source, relocated native varghests, and burned the bodies of the dead. The sky is orange and thick with smoke from the pyres. The Inquisitor lights each one personally after reciting a segment of the Chant.

When the last body is but ashes, he resolves to discuss his hypothesis with her. But she disappears before he can approach her, and a preliminary examination of the hallways turn up empty. Finally, he asks a servant carrying an empty bucket if she knows the Inquisitor’s whereabouts.

The servant gives him directions to a smaller room in the keep, and Solas stops in front of the door. He knocks, a quick one-two-three rap of his first two knuckles against the wood, and then clasps his hands behind his back.

The Inquisitor opens the door. Her hair is unbound. “Solas?” she asks, brow furrowing.

“Inquisitor. I was—” he stops, looking at the stone underneath his bare feet. Then he summons his courage and meets her gaze. “Do you have a moment?”

Nervousness flashes across her face for a heartbeat; her smile banishes it. She nods, stepping aside to allow him into the candlelit room. There is a large bed with pristine white sheets in the corner, but the piece of furniture that draws his eye is the round tub in the center of the room. It is filled to the brim with steaming water. A handful of orange peels float in the water, and the steam Solas inhales carries their scent on its back.

 _So that is why she smells like citrus_ , he thinks, absently.

“I apologize,” he says, after a moment. “I did not mean to disturb you. I should—”

“Solas, it’s fine,” she says. Her smile is tired, worn around the edges. “The bath can wait. How can I help?”

There is a balcony overlooking the rest of the Keep, and the only thing that separates it from the rest of the room is a sheer white curtain. Solas strides out onto the balcony, acutely aware of her presence behind him. The balustrade is warm, but not scalding, so he rests a hand on it as he turns back to her. “The stars are coming out,” she remarks, idly, stopping an arm’s length away from him.

Solas glances at the sky. Though it is twilight, stars are already spread across the vast expanse, a sea of diamond pinpricks to blanket the cooling desert. Two full moons in the sky bathe the balcony in silver, and the setting sun adds a splash of golden-orange across his feet.

Solas turns toward the Inquisitor and stares at her. Perhaps now he will be able to piece together the puzzle of her being. “What were you like? Before the Anchor?”

She blinks. “Um, I’m sorry?”

“Has it…” He cannot find the words to describe his musings—not ones that would offend her, at least. But he will refrain from those phrasings, if possible; they would be needlessly cruel. They would hurt her.

Above all, he does not want to hurt her.

“Has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals, your—spirit?”

Her lips quirk. She folds her arms across her chest and cocks a hip against the railing. “You got me,” she admits with a grin. For a heartbeat, he cannot think—an invisible kiss burns his lips.

“I was a _terror_ in the Circle. I replaced sugar with salt in the kitchens on a daily basis, I tripped the apprentices, and I had sex on the Knight Commander’s desk—not once, not twice, but four times. I escaped from the Circle no less than three times and set my tutors’ robes on fire once a month. And then the Conclave happened, I got the Anchor, and now I’ve forgotten how to be mean. And I cry when I pet small, fluffy animals.”

She—what?

Her eyes sparkle, and there’s just the shyest hint of her dimples in her smile. Solas straightens, his nose scrunching in distaste. His had been a fanciful notion, to be certain, but her mockery still rankles. “Be serious, Inquisitor.”

Her face softens further, her dimples deepening as her smile widens. The glimpse of pearly teeth lights up her whole face. The dusk gives her black hair a blueish tint. Another detail he had not noticed before—it seems she is full of surprises. She is radiant before him, the last true hope to which this abysmal world may cling—

Ah.

“If this thing had changed me, what makes you think I’d have noticed?”

“That’s an excellent point.” Solas looks down at his hand, resting on the balustrade.

She places a hand on the railing and leans forward, capturing his attention once again. “Why do you ask?”

He tells her. _Everything_ about her has surprised him: her dedication to compassion, her mercy and surprising wisdom in her judgements, her very _character_ are all contrary to the nature of humanity. When she asks him what she’s done to surprise him, he hesitates, and her eyebrows raise. “By the way, this doesn’t happen to tie into that ‘humans suck’ discussion we had the other day, does it?”

Solas sighs. “I will not hide the truth because it is inconvenient.”

“Truth?” She blinks. “You just said I go against everything humanity supposedly embodies.”

“A lone exception does not negate the rule!”

Her brow creases. She does not seem angry, only… dismayed, perhaps, but he cannot read her expression. “What did humans _do_ to you, Solas?”

“Nothing, personally.” The lie sits bitter on his tongue.

Humanity had crushed Elvhenan under its heel; a murder of crows feasting upon a body not yet dead. They had dismantled the remnants of the People and herded them into cages like animals. Humanity had used the People as slaves, as blood, as bodies for the night. Even now, the People are cowering shells of what they should be, ever fearful of the shemlen shadow.

Elvhenan had fallen because of his mistakes, true. But ruins, by nature, linger.

Humanity had ensured there _were_ no ruins.

She doesn’t believe him. He can see as much in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. The sincerity of her words scrape against his insides, a knife’s-blade thinness between agony and—something else. Her hand inches closer to his, but their fingertips do not touch. His lips burn.

“What they did to you—I know whatever I say won’t change what happened, and my words might not even help. But I _am_ sor—”

“It was not your doing,” he says, quietly, cutting her off. She has shown him that much.

Her eyes reflect one of the moons. Her gaze on him is unwavering, steady, and the darkening sky does not protect what she might see. At last, she speaks, voice hushed. “Is this why you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes. I… had suspicions about the Mark. But I was wrong.”

He sees her swallow, and her fingers drum against the railing. “And… the kiss?” she asks, softly. He can only hear her because he is—close. Closer than he’d realized.

Solas’s mouth goes dry, and something wraps an iron fist around the muscle of his heart. “The kiss,” he repeats, unable to look away from her eyes. “Ah. Yes.”

He had hoped putting it out of his mind would ease the longing that has curled into a tight ball and burrowed into the deepest places in his chest. Instead, her words reawaken a fresh hunger. He should—he should step away, before he does something he regrets.

And he does, tucking his hands behind his back and ignoring the hurt that flashes across her face. The expression is gone as soon as it had appeared, however, and her gaze remains locked with his. He is caught in the depths of it, unable to look away.

“It was—impulsive, and ill-considered. I should not have encouraged it. For that, you have my apologies. It was my mistake, Inquisitor. Please, think no more of it.”

He must go. He must, lest he take whatever she offers. Lest he succumb to the simple warmth of her hand on his skin.

Solas’s next breath gives him the resolve he needs. He breaks her gaze and turns away, striding for the balcony archway.

Her hand catches him around the arm, fingers curling just over his elbow. Solas stills, caught, hardly daring to breathe. The warmth of her hand burns through his tunic.

“Is that what you want?”

He almost does not hear her over the rush of blood in his ears. Once her words register, he manages to turn and regard her. She releases him, and though Solas straightens, dropping his arm to his side, he still feels the ghost of her touch upon his bicep.

_Is that what you want?_

How simplistic.

What he wants is irrelevant; he wants many things, and all of them are thus far unattainable. He wants Elvhenan before the Evanuris fell to corruption and greed. He wants the People—the _true_ People, not these shadows cowering in filthy cities or slinking through forests bearing vallaslin—restored to their true glory. He wants a world where reality is not cleaved from dreams. A world where his mistakes do not echo in every speck of dirt, every brush of wind, every gurgle of water.

He also wants—

He wants—

One more kiss. One more taste.

 _Irrelevant_.

He fists his hands behind his back, nails digging into skin. “If I could have a little time to think,” he manages, still unable to tear his eyes from her. It is wholly dark, now, and the two moons’ light bathes her in silver. The candlelight from the room is bright enough to glow in her eyes. Golden stars flicker across black-brown irises.

“Take all the time you need,” she returns. Her small, tentative smile pierces through him.

“Thank you.” His exhale is shakier than he’d like. “Goodnight, Inquisitor.”

Solas does not wait for her reply. He turns and strides through the room. He passes the bath, and the citrus-scented steam coils in his lungs. He remembers the last time her smell was so pervasive, and for an instant he can almost taste the mint on his tongue again.

When he shuts the door behind him, the accompanying click carries a note of finality that eases some of the pressure in his chest. Solas does not stop walking until he reaches one of the highest battlements in the entire Keep. He has no personal quarters to retreat to in this place, so this will have to do.

The guards give him odd looks, but leave him be. Solas stands before the parapet and observes the desert. The sands are painted pale blue by the dark night sky, and the dunes shift with every breeze. The Veil is thin, worn ragged by death and the Blight; where a human would see black, he can see leachings of plum purple and deep indigo splashed between the stars.

The desert’s beauty would be thricefold, if the Veil did not exist.

He shies from the thought, returning his attention to his conversation with the Inquisitor. He turns her words over and over in his mind, as one would while examining a durgen’len puzzle box.

_Is that what you want?_

He wants—her. That itself is easy enough to admit.

Now that he has had a taste, he is ravenous.

But it could lead to complications, emotional entanglements neither of them need. He is not certain he has the strength of heart to remain aloof. He is not certain that he has the clarity of mind to remain focused on what matters: ending Corypheus, then rebuilding Elvhenan. Those are his only two goals. Anything else that impedes the completion of either goal is a distraction to be removed from his focus.

“Shadows,” he tells the silent night. The reminder invigorates him.

She is a shemlen flitting through the shadows of time. She will slip away, like water through his fingers, all in the span of a thousand heartbeats. Indulging in what she offers would be intolerably selfish.

In truth, her kindness will not matter when she turns against him, should she discover his plans. Her courage will be for naught once Elvhenan is reborn and the Veil torn asunder. The memories of her laughter and her dimples will fade to nothing, given time.

She _does not matter._

His hands have already destroyed so much. It would be needlessly cruel to engage in romantic entanglements with her, as though kicking a pup. Better to allow her some semblance of peace in the time she has left. He will not repudiate their friendship—no, it is critical to his plans, and may very well secure the orb for him—but he will nip this blossoming… _attraction_ before it can grow further unchecked.

Yes. Reassured, Solas crosses his hands behind his back and retires to his tent.

 

He wakes to sunlight. The glare is relentless, even in the early morning. Someone whispers his name. Solas squints, sitting up, and sees Dorian’s head between the flaps of his tent. “Get up, will you?” Dorian whispers. His eyes are tight in the corners.

“What is it?” Solas says, his voice still thick with sleep. He wipes at his eyes in an attempt to rid himself of the tiredness that weighs down his bones.

“The Inquisitor won’t wake up,” Dorian replies. “We’ve moved her to Captain Rylen’s room. I’ll take you there when you’re ready.” With that, he ducks out of the tent.

Solas collapses on his bedroll, closing his eyes. And then—the mage’s words sink in, and Solas’s eyes snap back open.

She— _no_.

He changes quickly, not bothering to bring a pack with him as he exits the tent and strides toward the Inquisitor’s tent. Soldiers are already awake, some chatting among themselves, others donning armor and weapons, preparing to head out into the field.

No one notices when Solas and Dorian cross the square to disappear inside the Keep. Dorian takes him to the same hallway Solas had been in last night and pushes the bedroom door open. Solas keeps his hands behind his back, but he holds his breath as he walks into the room and his gaze falls upon the Inquisitor.

She is in the bed, the covers pulled up to her stomach. Her eyelids flutter, but she does not wake. Her face is calm, serene; there is no evidence of nightmares, or any other distress.

The Enchanter sits beside her, mouth set into a grim line. She looks up at their entrance. “Darling,” the Enchanter greets Solas, arching a brow. “Dorian thinks that whatever hedge knowledge you learned in the woods will be able to aid the Inquisitor. I am not so optimistic.”

“If I can give assistance, I will,” Solas replies, biting back a sneer of disgust. It is too early to engage in petty sniping, especially with one of the Enchanter’s ignorance. He rounds the bed and sits beside the Inquisitor, and his hand brushes against the backs of her knuckles. Electricity shivers up his arm. “You have tried every other option?”

Dorian nods. He has settled against a wall, arms crossed over his chest, the concern in his eyes betraying his nonchalant posture. “Reviving potions, energy spells, I even shook her like a ragdoll. Nothing has worked so far. Our last option is—well.” He winces. “Going into the Fade and seeing if we can find her.”

“And as you love the Fade so,” the Enchanter adds, voice dripping with disdain, “you were our only reasonable option.”

Solas clenches his jaw as he slides a hand under the Inquisitor’s back, settling his palm between her shoulderblades. He lifts her, just slightly. She is like a ragdoll in his arms, limp and unresponsive, her head lolling whenever her body moves. Her features are calm, smooth; there is no evidence of nightmares or any other distress. Were it not for the pulse tangible under her skin, Solas would think her dead.

A bolt of alarm shoots through him, twisting in his gut.

“I will need the room,” he says.

“Absolutely not, dear,” replies the Enchanter. “Should the worst happen, I will be the first one to intercede.”

Solas’s lip curls in distaste. There is no doubt in his mind what she means by _intercede._ “I will be sure to inform the Inquisitor of your good faith in her,” he snaps. “If you will excuse me, Enchanter.”

Without looking at either of the mages, he lies down beside the Inquisitor. He crosses his ankles and tucks his hands under his armpits, focusing on relaxing, on slow, deep breaths. Soon the tiredness returns in full force. Solas tilts his head with a sigh, his eyes shutting.

When he opens them, a canopy of trees conceal the sky. Their bark is black, and the grass beneath his feet is a deep, moss green. He rises to his feet, scanning his surroundings, but he sees no break in the trees. The forest stretches on as far as he can see.

“Inquisitor!” he calls. His voice echoes, sending a flock of birds to flight, but there is no response, only crushing silence.

There is no sign of movement in the trees. No flap of wings as the flock takes to the sky, no crack of twigs as animals prowl across the forest. It is still, silent, and empty. He will not find the Inquisitor by lingering.

Solas takes his staff and starts walking.

There is no differentiation between the trees, he notes. All have the same smooth, black bark. No marks from insects, or animals making a home. There is no underbrush, either, just endless grass that brushes against his ankles.

Solas continues walking, and as he ventures deeper into the forest he feels mist cling to his ankles. When he looks behind him, a fog has rolled in, so thick it conceals all but the closest tree trunks. A cold sensation trickles down his spine, and his back straightens reflexively.

“Trickster,” a deep, gravelly voice breathes against his ear. “Are you interfering with my hunt? She is not yours to free.”

A thrill of cold anger knots in his stomach as he realizes what has trapped her in her own mind. “Nightmare,” Solas greets, coolly; the Nightmare responds with laughter.

He turns, but sees nothing. The fog envelops all but a small circle around his body. Solas shuts his eyes, picturing emerald grass, but the Fade does not bend to his will. Not here. His eyes open, and his brow furrows.

For an instant, he thinks he sees the Inquisitor, calling his name, but when he blinks she is gone.

He is utterly alone.

Mist creeps up his ankles and harden, locking him in place.

“She is but a fleeting dream,” the demon says. The Nightmare sounds like Elgar’nan, but its voice is twisted, distorted from his memories. He has heard Elvhen from the lips of madmen and power hungry tyrants, but it had still been beautiful; from this creature, the language sounds sinister. “You will kill her, as you did Slow Arrow, and condemn yourself to die alone on your path of death. You will always sacrifice what you love for the larger goal—and it will always be for naught.”

“Nothing is inevitable,” Solas says.

“No?” the Nightmare taunts.

He tries, again, to move, but the mist cuts into his legs and the tops of his feet. Blood splashes upon the ground, and hazes red through the fog. “Release her. Keep me if your thirst for fear demands it, but spare her.”

“Ah.” The creature laughs, low and throaty. “Poor Dread Wolf. It has been so long. She is so kind… and you are so _hungry_.”

The ground jerks under him, sending him to his knees. Solas catches himself on his staff with a sharp hiss, but the mist locks around his calves and the backs of his knees like shackles, preventing him from rising. He grits his teeth as he rests his forehead against his staff, gripping the wood with white-knuckled hands.

It is… cold. His breath mists before him, and the pulse of his heart is a dull thud in his ears. He listens to the blood, and wonders if it is his imagination—no. No, his heartbeat is truly slowing. He cannot feel his feet.

The mist is now snow, stained red with his own blood. His staff, her gift, is the only thing that keeps him upright. His fingers dig into the wolf’s scruff, leech warmth from the fire magic contained within the focusing crystal. It is for naught.

He grits his teeth. If he had even an ounce of his old power, he could have banished this demon without a thought, rent it to ribbons for its presumption. Now, he is being bested by a mere _fearling._

And yet—he gives another glance around, and fear tightens in his chest. The world is cold, and empty, and he will die alone. All he has done, and he end up a nameless corpse, another lone traveler succumbed to the elements. The wind buffets him, easily cutting through his thin tunic and chilling him to the bone. He tilts his head back, regards the gray sky through narrowed eyes. When he tries one last time to rise, the wind is so forceful he nearly topples. He rights himself, kneeling in the snow and mist, and does not try again.

Solas closes his eyes.

As the seconds between his heartbeats grow, he thinks of a kiss.

“Solas!”

He looks up, and sees _her,_ sprinting toward him. He blinks, and the dream flickers—trees rise through the fog, and there is grass underneath his feet, not ice.

Though they are technically sharing a dream, the Nightmare is managing to keep them separate. Somehow, there is a part of him that is fascinated by the technique—appreciative, even. He can admire the grace in such raw power, even though it is being used against him.

She cries his name again, and while their surroundings flicker around them, he finds the strength to resist the Nightmare’s ice and lifts a hand toward her. In heartbeats, she is there, hands wrapping around his, pulling him to his feet.

“Run!” she cries, clasping his hand tight. The snow disappears entirely and he is back in the forest, running without any clear destination in mind. He wants to look over his shoulder, to see what has terrified her so that she sees no other option except to flee. Before he can, heavy footsteps shake the ground, and a low, metallic laugh grates down his ribs.

He knows exactly what sort of creature chases them, now.

Electricity crackles in the air. Before he can give her a word of warning, she releases his hand, pushing him forward. He stumbles, catches himself, and turns on his heel. All he sees is the Inquisitor raise her hand, and—

A large barrier, solid and blue, lifts between them and the pride demon, just as a ball of electricity crashes into it. She takes his hand again, pulling him between two trees, too narrow for the pride demon to pass through.

It is undeterred. Though they are a fair distance from the creature, Solas can still hear its bellow and the crash as it uproots trees with one savage blow.

The Inquisitor finds a fallen tree on the crest of a hill and takes him around to hide behind it. She releases his hand and buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking. Though it had been practical at the time, as he had been in no state to follow her on his own, he still mourns the solid weight of her palm in his.

Then he catches himself, and looks away, keeping an eye out for the demon. While she collects herself, he gathers his own power around himself, pushing out the Nightmare’s influence. It is a strain; the demon fights him every inch, snarling half-truths into Solas’s ear.

When there is a radius around the both of them, Solas leans against the tree, closing his eyes. There is sweat on his brow. Such a simple act should not drain him so. If he had not slept for so long…

“Solas,” she says, and he opens his eyes to regard her. Her eyes are red, and her next words are a whisper. “You should be dead.”

“Excuse me?” he says, furrowing his brow. She shakes her head.

“We—it snapped your neck, Solas,” she says. Her lower lip trembles, and she looks away, squeezing her eyes shut. Her shoulders slump. He can only see one thing in her expression—helplessness. “I saw it. I saw…”

“Inquisitor,” he says, very softly. The barrier gives way, just slightly, as the demon howls its fury and presses against his magic. Solas stops, concentrates, and manages to keep it at bay. His temples throb, but he ignores the pain.

He turns to her once more, and rests a hand on her shoulder. She looks at him, forehead creasing, and he half-smiles. “Wake up.”

In heartbeats, she is gone, and the Nightmare’s howl of rage worsens his headache. Solas focuses, drawing the barrier that keeps the Nightmare out around himself, ignoring how voices from his past whisper on the other side.

He pulls himself from the dream and out of the Fade just as the Nightmare breaks the barrier.

 

Solas opens his eyes with a start, echoes of the Nightmare’s snarls ringing in his ears. The first thing he sees is her, eyes wide and fixed on him, lips parted on a breath. Their noses almost brush, and this close, he can count a dozen new freckles splashed across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes. Newly gained from her time in the Western Approach, no doubt, yet he still wonders how he had not noticed.

For a moment, the world is silent as they stare at each other. His palm is warm; he looks down and his breath catches when he sees her own slender palm nestled against his, fingers interlaced. He should release her hand, should sit up, but he is caught in the darkness of her soft gaze.

“What happened?” Dorian asks, hesitant. His gaze darts between Solas and the Inquisitor.

Solas does not answer. He tears his gaze from her, releases her hand, and walks to the doorway. He rests one hand on the wood and looks at Dorian from the corner of his eye. “The Nightmare is hunting her dreams. It was not pleased she escaped its grasp. Forgive me, but I must consider our next move.”

Without looking back, he strides from the room, hands clasped behind his back.

The palm she’d held burns.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAHH guys, look what the wonderful Milee Cosgrove [made](http://milee-cosgrove.tumblr.com/post/136963645927/les-mots-valyrias-roosettes-he-shakes-his) for les mots! It's so beautiful, thank you! :))

Solas retires to his tent. It is late morning—there is work to do—but he must think. He _must_.

He sits, cross-legged, and closes his eyes, straightening his back and allowing his shoulders to relax. The Nightmare is too powerful a being to run from; the only hope of escaping it would be to build a shelter in the Fade. He is yet too weak to build a lasting sanctuary. But perhaps if the Inquisitor aids him, utilizing the additional focusing power of the Anchor…

He will have to share dreams with her. At least until she learns enough to stand against the Nightmare on her own.

He opens his eyes, a strange sort of anticipation warming in his chest before he shuts it away. If anything, this new development will only hinder his goals further. He _must_ be vigilant, he _must_ take every precaution to remain aloof. They may be companions, but their relationship cannot develop any further.

He thinks of a dimple, etched into the corner of one cheek, and silverlit skin under the moon.

He closes his eyes again, so tightly he can see nothing but the splash of colors dancing in the darkness behind his eyelids. He breathes in, and as he exhales he expels the images from his thoughts. Once his mind is clear, he rises to his feet, and rejoins the bustling Keep.

He aids the Enchanter in healing what wounded remain. Halfway through, the Inquisitor joins them. She wears doeskin leggings and a light tunic—the sleeves are rolled to the tops of her arms. A golden sash ties it off, cinching the tunic and accentuating her hips.

She smiles at him. “Solas,” she says. “Can we… talk? For a little bit?”

Solas glances at the Enchanter, who concedes with a slight purse of her lips, moving from her place of momentary rest to replace Solas. Solas stands up, and accompanies her outside. She does not say anything until they stand on the ramparts, where the slight breeze is the strongest.

She gazes out over the desert. “The Wardens remain with us,” she says, drumming her fingers against the red stone of the Keep.

“Unfortunate,” he remarks. Her hair is a bun again, a singular braid distinctive within the style, and he remembers when it had been loose around her shoulders. He banishes the thought and folds his hand behind his back.

She hums, though it is more a noise to indicate she’d heard, not one to signal her agreement. She’s frowning at the yellow-orange wasteland surrounding them, drumming her fingers, and Solas waits.

At last, she says, very softly, “Our—dream. Was it real?”

Solas studies her. “That is debatable, depending on your definition of ‘real’. It did not occur in the waking world, yet you felt emotions, did you not? The forest was tangible, and your fear of the demon was valid.”

“It wasn’t fear of the demon,” she says, curling her hands until they’re fists. Her jaw clenches, and her shoulders slump. “It was… we were fighting it. Everyone was. It killed them all, even you, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. All I could do was run and hope it didn’t catch me. I felt so…”

She trails off, though he does not need her to finish. _Helpless._

He clears his throat. “Inquisitor… I believe that our combined efforts will be able to carve out an impenetrable corner of the Fade, one where the Nightmare’s influences cannot reach. It will take time, of course, and I do not know if it will work. But we can always request aid from benign spirits to reinforce the sanctuary. And, in time, perhaps, you shall have enough will to maintain it on your own.”

She frowns, just slightly. “I wouldn’t be too sure. That thing’s already proven that it can easily get under my skin. Maker’s breath, you just need to throw a pride demon at me and I turn into a mess—”

“You give yourself too little credit,” Solas says, quietly. “You have an indomitable focus, Inquisitor. It has been a long while since I have seen its like.”

She stills, looking at him. There is a small quirk to the corner her mouth. It is—soft. Of course, everything about her is soft; he should not be surprised. He remembers warmth, and wonders what it would be like, to kiss her again.

It is an errant thought, one borne from the fickle heart and not the steady mind, and he counters it swiftly: his hands fist behind his back, digging his nails into his palms. It is a denial, and a reminder of his resolve.

“I believe that we shall have no difficulty subverting this demon. You need not fear your dreams, Inquisitor. I shall be at your side.”

“I’m glad for that,” she replies, gifting him with a precious smile. “Thank you, Solas. I know you don’t have to do this, but it means a lot.”

He looks away, and she sighs, shifting to fully face the desert. She props herself on her elbows, leaning forward. Solas glances down for a heartbeat, then lifts his head, staring over the orange wastes. Even the air sizzles with heat.

“I love the desert,” she confesses. “I thought I’d hate it, but it’s… quite beautiful.”

“It is a wasteland,” Solas returns. “Barren from the Blight. Better to mark it as hopeless, where only the carrion and the strong survive. The only worth it holds is within the memories preserved in the Fade, and those, too, I think, are not worth much.”

“No, not hopeless,” she argues. “There’s a river, hidden in the ravines. There’s grass and herbs growing around it, and fennec burrows. I saw a phoenix and her calf. There’s beauty here, Solas, if you only look for it.”

“Indeed,” he says, and his gaze travels to her again. She does not notice his impulsive glance, thankfully, and he fists his hands tighter as he looks back at the desert. “If that is all, Inquisitor?”

“No.” She pushed herself upright and turns around, cocking a hip against the ramparts. “Some scouts found a sealed Tevinter ruin. I’m taking a team there to check it out. Want to join me?”

Solas blinks, then tilts his head in acknowledgement.

“Allow me to prepare,” he says, then turns, ready to walk away.

“Solas?” He looks back at her. She approaches him, and holds out a hand. Solas realizes what she is requesting, and, with a sigh, drops his hands to his sides. She holds his gaze as she curls her palms under his own, healing the shallow indents caused by his nails.

“I do not need you to do that for me,” he says, voice low. She hums, and moves onto his other hand. A stray black hair frames her face. He could reach forward, he knows, and tuck it behind her ear. He could step closer, and revel in the widening of her dark eyes, the slight parting of her pink lips.

He does not.

She releases his newly-unblemished hands and smiles. The freckles under the corner of her eye crease. “I know,” she says. “I just like taking care of my friends, is all.”

Ah.

Now would be the perfect time to lay his intentions bare. _I believe it would be better for us to maintain a working relationship, Inquisitor. I value your friendship, but a romantic entanglement benefits neither of us._

She would respect his wishes. He knows she would.

Yet the words lodge in his throat. He cannot speak them; he _needs_ to speak the words, and he knows it would be better if he did. But he _wants_ as well, and that selfish desire keeps the words tucked under his tongue, unspoken but heavy all the same.

He keeps his hands at his side and his gaze ahead. “I will prepare for our journey, Inquisitor,” he says, and leaves her to contemplate the desert.

Cole is sitting in his tent, head bobbing, fingers drumming against his knees. “Good morning, Cole,” Solas says, kneeling beside his bedroll. His armor is neatly folded on the fabric so it will not get sand in its creases. Still, he takes the precaution of dusting it off before he changes.

Cole says nothing, not until Solas dons his necklace. Then the spirit sucks in a sharp breath and says, “Bright and brilliant, he wanders the ways, walking, unwaking, searching for wisdom.”

Solas stops. Closes his eyes. “I do not need you to do that for me, Cole.” He does not need a reminder of Wisdom—it had been one of many he had failed to save. Another loss at the hands of this broken world.

“Your friend wanted you to be happy,” Cole replies, voice just above a whisper. “Even though she knew you wouldn’t be. I’m sorry she died, Solas.”

He swallows. _As am I._ “Thank you, Cole.”

“I didn’t know there were spirits of Wisdom,” the spirit says, and Solas’s chest is tight as he pulls on his fingerless gloves. He is already sweating, but they will ensure he does not rub his hands raw as he handles his weapon. He forgoes the wolf pelt and reaches for his belt.

“There are few,” he says, as he tightens the belt around himself. “Spirits form as a reflection of this world and its passions.”

He takes a breath, and strengthens his mental walls. They are in the privacy of his tent, but there is no telling what Cole will see when he decides to root through the hurts and pull them into the open. Solas takes up his staff and ducks out of the tent into the sunlight, and the spirit follows him. “We will never lack for spirits of rage, or hunger, or desire. The world gives them plenty to mirror.”

The Inquisitor is standing in a half-circle with Dorian, the da’len, the Qunari, Cassandra, and their assorted mounts. She has added a black-and-gray overcoat over a leather bodice to her outfit, transforming it into some semblance of armor. She has moved the sash to tie her overcoat shut, and the gold rests just under her breasts. Solas looks at Cassandra instead, focusing on the woman’s sunburnt face.

Solas makes his way to the assembled party, turning to Cole as he walks. “The gentler spirits are far more rare. We can ill afford the loss of even one spirit of Wisdom, or Faith… or Compassion.”

Cole nods, somber, but his eyes are on the Inquisitor. “I will try not to die.”

Solas stops beside the Qunari, releasing a breath. “Do that, please,” he says, softly.

“So what’s the plan, Boss?” the Qunari asks.

The Inquisitor feeds a sugar cube to her paint. “Scouts found these empty Tevinter ruins guarded by a complex seal—and they saw Venatori trying to break it. If they want to get whatever’s inside, that means that _we_ need to get it first.”

The da’len snorts, mounting her own Camargue. “Right, then. Let’s go stick it to Corypheshit, yeah?”

They are ready in a few moments, and the Inquisitor signals the gatekeepers once they are astride their mounts. The heavy metal doors squeal as they are pushed open, and the Inquisitor clicks her tongue, urging her horse forward.

The wind is still, today, but the lack of the breeze also means a stifling heat. Solas closes his eyes against the sun, and allows his strider to follow the other horses. The sun beats down on him, and sweat cools the back of his neck.

The Inquisitor’s curse—followed by a high-pitched, inhuman scream—makes him open his eyes.

An arch curves over the ravine they’re riding through, casting shade for a few blissful moments. But the relief from the sun is ruined by a golden-brown high dragon soaring through the sky. Her wings move with such power they stir a breeze. In front of him, the da’len lets out a stuttering giggle.

“Oh, look, a high dragon,” Dorian drawls beside him. “Just the thing to ruin our day.”

The Qunari’s laughter is deep-bellied, and somehow Solas knows what he will say. “Wrong again, kadan. Today is a good day. Today is a _very_ good day.”

How utterly predictable. The oxman is behind him, so Solas does not hesitate to roll his eyes. The dragon has done nothing to them, and the warrior still thirsts to kill it for the sake of sport. If the Qunari had a respect for the creatures, as Mythal had loved them, perhaps Solas could refrain from judging him so harshly. As it is, the distaste only festers.

Not only is the oxman a slave to a repressive ideology, he is a slave to the basest of urges as well.

“Yes, well.” Dorian sniffs. “I suppose I’ll have to be there when we inevitably fight her. Someone has to keep you alive.”

“That’s _my_ job,” the Inquisitor sing-songs. “And we’re not fighting the dragon, not unless she confronts us first.”

Above them, the dragon screams, and disappears from sight over the side of the canyon. Solas watches a serpentine tail vanish over the rock, and hopes that the dragon will live another day. It would be a shame for such a magnificent creature to perish because the oxman thirsts for a fight.

The Inquisitor leads them to the ruins; they take a path heading for the canyon camp, then veer to the left once there is a fork in the path. It is only a few minutes before the orange dirt gives way to paltry half-dead grass underneath the horses’ hooves. Solas shields his eyes against the sun, and sees black, pointed spires stretching into the sky, casting a long shadow.

They reach a corner, and hear low voices. The Inquisitor pulls up short, raising a hand. In silence, Solas and the rest of the party dismount. The da’len creeps forward, already wielding her bow.

She returns with a scowl. “Right, so there’s six mages, four stalkers, and two with warhammers. Let’s snuff _those_ arseholes first, yeah?”

“No. Sera, Dorian, Solas, come with me.” They return to the jut of rock that separates the ruins from the rest of the ravine. Venatori mages are puzzling over a glimmering barrier that encases the entire front of the ruins, which seem to have been built into the rock.

“Can you do fire glyphs?” she asks Solas and Dorian.

Dorian looks scandalized. “Can you _not_?”

She purses her lips, cheeks pink, and doesn’t answer. “Put some under the rogues,” she says. “Sera, ten coppers says you can’t kill a stalker with one arrow.”

The da’len blows a raspberry and drops to one knee. “Aiming for the blighter on the left,” she murmurs, pulling her bowstring taut. “None of you kill him first, yeah?”

She releases her arrow, and it spears a Venatori rogue through the throat. The man chokes as he dies, and the Venatori turn as one, the barrier they are working to dismantle forgotten. As one, Solas and Dorian call upon flames, and the heat of it incinerates another stalker.

Green smoke curls from behind a spellbinder, and Cole steps through the air, his daggers sliding across the soft robes of the Venatori and ending him quickly. The Inquisitor shouts; Cassandra and the Qunari charge into the fray, the latter bellowing taunts.

The fight is short, but fierce. The brutes are the ones who give them the most trouble, but they, too, fall. Their group gathers near the seal over the doors, and as the Inquisitor tends to the warriors’ injuries, she says, “Dorian, Solas, can you two see if you can dispel that barrier?”

Solas scans the Inquisitor herself for injuries. It is a foolish impulse, he knows—he had not left her side, and no Venatori had come close to him—but there is still a tightness in his chest that does not leave until he is assured of her safety.

He joins Dorian’s side. The barrier was made of powerful magic, its focus turned inward, not outward. “It’s not keeping us out, it’s keeping something in,” Dorian muses, and Solas nods. Dark amusement enters the man’s voice. “Whoever set this barrier didn't want us to enter. Well then. Shall we disappoint them?”

Dorian sends out a pulse of magic, and the barrier flares, but does nothing. The Qunari huffs beside him. “That does make me wonder what it’s keeping inside.”

Solas re-examines the barrier. It is weakened from the Venatori’s attempts, and spread thin to cover the entirety of the massive doors. Pure spirit magic, but old, and less potent than one would expect.

Solas sends a firebolt into it, and the barrier shatters in an explosion of sparks, dissipating into the air. "Well, that's one way to do it," says Dorian. A wind picks up, and the doors creak open. Stale, hot air seeps through the new opening, and Solas is the first one to step inside the ruins.

Sand is scattered across the floor. The entrance is poorly lit, but the center of the cavernous space of the building is bright. Solas looks up, and sees that most of the roof had crumbled—and he stills when he sees yellow blocks in the midst of tumbling hanging in the air, as if tethered to the spot.

The Inquisitor stops beside him and gasps, shrinking away from her left. Solas turns, and sees what she does at once: a terror demon, its claws extended in front of it, its jaws open in a silent scream. It faces against a soldier with a Venatori helmet, but different armor.

Neither of them move, or breathe.

It is as if they are… frozen in time.

“So much fear,” Cole muses. “It’s spread across everywhere.”

How strange. How _fascinating._ What magic could have actually stopped time in this pocket of the universe? How much blood had they had to spill? Had something for the Tevinters gone wrong, and they had stopped time as a contingency plan? The da’len makes a dismissive noise behind him, but her words betray her nervousness. “Right. Let’s get what we came for and leave, yeah?”

Solas turns his head. Everywhere, there are demons, and Tevinter soldiers engaged in combat with them. A spellbinder is in the midst of casting a spell, and a Despair demon is shooting a stream of ice and snow at a warrior. The ruins are absolutely still, except for the entrance where their party stands.

The Qunari growls. “Oh, this is _shitty_. Let’s leave the demons alone, Boss.”

“You and Sera go watch the horses,” she replies. “Shout if more Venatori come.”

“Got it, Boss,” says the oxman; he and the da’len leave, and the doors swing shut behind them. The Inquisitor wants to explore; Cassandra wants to find the artifact the Venatori sought and leave. They compromise. Cassandra and Cole set off for hints as to the artifact’s whereabouts, and the three mages band together to explore the ruins.

They stop in front of a skirmish between two hunger demons and a Tevinter soldier. The mage has his arms spread wide, and unmoving fireballs are halfway to the demons, flickering with light but giving no heat. A trail of light behind them still lingers. He can see the Tevinter’s fear in the man’s eyes.

An eerie sight, but a fascinating study. He says as much aloud, and Dorian nods. “These soldiers’ armor—they date back at least two Ages. I’ve seen their like in a Minrathous museum. I wonder what they were doing… and what went wrong.”

The Inquisitor looks toward the sky, where the ceiling is in the process of caving. There is a bird, hovering just above one of the blocks, and it, too, is still. Solas wonders how far the radius of the spell extended; he wonders if there is a phoenix above the canyon flanking the ruins, frozen mid-stride.

He looks back at her, gaze tracing over the graceful arch of her throat, and does not look away.

“I am Kordillus, King of Kings,” she murmurs. Her words are quiet, but still seem to disturb the serenity. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”

“I have not heard that poem,” Solas says.

“It’s a poem written after the Blight turned half of western Orlais into a wasteland. Basically, there’s a traveler wandering around the desert and he sees a statue with that engraving on it— _I am Kordillus, King of Kings_ , that one. And as the traveler finishes reading it, he looks up, and all he can see is sand. There’s nothing there anymore. It’s… very sad.”

They approach the rift, and the despair demon in mid-attack underneath it. Like the fireballs, the light of the Fade pulses from within, but it is as stationary as the rest of the ruins. The Inquisitor lifts her Anchored hand, then frowns, shaking her head. “I can’t close it. Something’s… wrong.”

“They’ve stopped time itself,” Dorian says, awed. “The power required for such a feat…”

“Would be immense.” Solas frowns. How many slaves had died to fuel this Tevinter ritual? How many of these new elves had died at behest of shemlen masters because he had abandoned their ancestors to human enslavement?

He glances at the Inquisitor. She’s still gazing at the tumbling rocks frozen in time, and sunlight shines on her hair, giving it the faintest blue tint. A stray strand has escaped from her bun, and curls against the nape of her neck.

“Finding whatever the Venatori sought here may be worth looking into,” he says, and she nods.

“Let’s go find Cassandra and Cole. They may have found something.”

They find the duo crossing an open hall, holding oddly-shaped stones. Cassandra nods to the door of a smaller building, sealed and untouched by the fighting, save for the two pairs of soldiers that are unmoving in front of the doors. Two stones are already fitted inside the door, and the edges of it glow green. “The door was sealed when we arrived. I believe that what the Venatori wanted is in here,” she says.

They open the door, and a grotesque sight awaits them. A sphere of blood, originating from a corpse sprawled across the floor, surrounds a staff with a skull as its focusing accessory. The staff itself is within a pedestal of stone, standing upright, the skull facing the doorway. Blood glints in the sunlight.

“I’d be careful with that, if I were you,” Dorian says, very softly.

“Ten silvers that’s the thing the Venatori were after; thirty royals that’s what’s keeping the time spell in place,” the Inquisitor whispers back, to Dorian’s low laugh.

“I won’t take that bet. I’m not a spendthrift, thank you.”

“Cass, can you go get Bull and Sera? I want us all to be here when I break the spell.”

Cassandra leaves, and the Inquisitor walks out of the chamber. Dorian remains, examining the blood that hovers in the air. Solas follows the Inquisitor, standing in the shade as she crosses the hall to stand at the far end. A man hovers in midair, directly positioned under several large blocks of golden stone. Once time resumes, he will be crushed. He allows a brief moment of pity for the Tevinter mage.

The Inquisitor returns after a few heartbeats, and stops in front of him. “Do you think they’ve been watching, unable to move? Do you think they’re asleep? When they wake up, will it be like time had never stopped?”

“I cannot say, Inquisitor,” he says. This is not related to the magic of uthenera; he cannot craft an elaborate web of words to erase the strange melancholy in her eyes. “This magic is like none I have experienced.”

The party reunites, and the Qunari closes the door behind them. “Ready?” the Inquisitor asks. After they nod, she steps through the cloud of blood, reaches for the staff, and sucks in a breath as her hands wrap around it. “Oh,” she says, hushed. Solas looks back at her, alarmed at her tone. She twists the staff, and the ground shudders. Cassandra steadies Solas, and pebbles rain from the ceiling.

The Inquisitor lifts the staff from its prison, and somewhere outside a terror demon howls. He hears blocks of stone hit the ground in a thunder of sound. The sphere of blood explodes in a scattering of light, and Solas looks away to shield his face.

“Wait,” the Qunari says. There are a few more brief clashes of battle, as the last of the Tevinters fall to the demons. He glances at Cassandra, who nods and raises her shield, her eyes narrowed. Cole steps into the shadows, and disappears.

The Qunari opens the door, where the reawakened demons await them.

The battle is—thrilling. They fight their way to the main chamber, where the rift is once again active, the edges of it expanding as demons clamor to claw out of it. “Keep them off of me!” the Inquisitor calls, and Solas falls into step beside her as she heads for the rift. It’s contorted, a sickly shade of green, and he can see another demon forming inside of it.

“Hurry!” he cries, and freezes a hunger demon.

The Qunari shatters it, then charges to another group of demons with a roar. The da’len is supporting Cassandra, her eyes scrunched in concentration and her mouth spitting curses with every arrow. Solas himself can feel the warning pulse of a headache building.

“We cannot last long like this,” he calls to the Inquisitor. For every demon they fell, two more seem to appear. Soon, they will be overwhelmed.

“I’m trying!” she cries, reaching for the rift. The Anchor sparks, making a connection, and Solas watches a stream of his magic flow from her palm, knitting the rift together. She shouts, falling to her knees, but the connection holds. Solas puts a barrier over them both, ignoring the sweat trickling down his neck, and sees a terror demon from the corner of his eye. It screams, its black eyes fixated on the Inquisitor. It stoops low, teeth bared, and slips through the Fade in a curl of green smoke.

_No._

Solas turns toward the Inquisitor, who is gritting her teeth, her eyes narrowed into slits against the brightness of the rift. He crouches down, already feeling the floor beneath them grow less solid, less real. He wraps his arms around her, and as he moves, the rift closes with a _snap._

Solas grunts and pushes away from the smoke curling across their legs, using a burst of force magic to aid him, and they skitter across the cracked marble floor. The terror rises up, claws reaching for the space they had occupied heartbeats ago. It turns toward them, but Cole jumps in front of it, distracting it with cleverly placed daggers and graceful turns.

“Thanks,” the Inquisitor gasps. Solas’s shoulder aches from where she had landed on it. He holds her tighter, trying to catch his breath. He lifts his head, casting a barrier over them, and watches Cassandra slam shield-first into the terror. When it is suitably distracted, he releases the Inquisitor and helps her to her feet.

The demons fall, and as he turns to ensure no other member of the party is in danger, his gaze falls upon a stone orb, resting on a pedestal yet abandoned in a corner. It is cracked down the middle, and Solas’s breath catches in his throat.

It could not be what he thinks it is, but it is. He remembers imbibing dozens of artifacts just like the one before him with small bursts of his power, and placing them in key parts of Elvhen wilderness. They had proved irrelevant, in the end—he had had enough power at Tarasyl’an Tel’as to enact his disastrous mistake. But now...

The artifact is old, coated in grime and dust, but he sends out an exploratory pulse with the last of his mana, and his own magic sings back to him. It is distinct from the Anchor; there is no muddying from the Inquisitor’s own magic, none of her mana to wrap threads around his magic and form an unbreakable tapestry.

Solas smiles, turning toward the Inquisitor, but she is rushing toward the da’len. The da’len makes a face at the Inquisitor’s glowing hands, but begrudgingly allows her to look at her injured shoulder, mottled from a hunger demon’s unrelenting grip.

Solas looks back at the artifact, hidden in the shadow of a staircase that leads to nowhere. “It was lost once, and now it’s found,” Cole says. “A song that sings the same, at last.”

Solas smiles. “Indeed.”

“Don’t,” Cole requests. Solas shakes his head, staring at the spirit.

“The alternative is worse,” he replies. Dorian approaches them, then stops, gaze darting between them as though he is watching a match. “I am sorry, Cole.”

“It’s fascinating listening to you two,” Dorian declares, arching an eyebrow. “Like trying to figure out a puzzle with only half of the pieces.”

“I am pleased you’re enjoying yourself,” Solas remarks, dryly.

“Everyone all right?” the Inquisitor calls. Cassandra unfastens part of her armor, revealing bloody skin where a demon had torn through the metal. Once the worst of the party’s injuries are healed, the Inquisitor declares the mission a success. Solas does not look at the artifact again.

 

 

 

He bides his time, at least until it is dark out.

Once the sun has set, Solas rises from his tent in silence, donning his cloak but not his armor. He does not bother to walk in the shadows as he heads to the stables—such actions would only draw more attention to himself. His mare is eating hay, but when she hears him, she looks up, ears swiveling toward him. Solas strokes her nose, then saddles her himself, murmuring to her in Elvhen.

He leads her to the gates, and one of the guards halts him. “What’s your business? Her Worship doesn’t want anyone outside the Keep, not until the darkspawn are taken care of.”

Solas meets the man’s gaze, and falls into his familiar dance of half-truths. “There is a ruin, nestled into a certain part of the canyons here. An artifact lies within it. I believe it has an intrinsic connection to the Fade, and further study of it will assist the Inquisition's efforts to mend the Veil.”

The guard exchanges a glance with his fellow, who only shrugs. “They may be meeting up,” the other man says, and the first guard turns back to him.

“Aye. You’re free to go.” He steps aside, and the gates creak open. Solas thanks them and mounts his mare, lifting his scarf to cover his mouth from any excess sand. When the path is clear, he urges his horse forward with a soft click of his tongue, and lifts his scarf to cover his mouth. It is bitterly cold in the desert, now, but beautiful. He catches traces of midnight blue in the sky, and indigo. One of the moons is a crescent, nearly concealed by the other, far fuller moon. The sand is silver under his strider’s hooves.

When he reaches the Tevinter ruins, an unfamiliar horse is tied to one of the deathroot trees. The guards had mentioned another—the person must have come here, then. He will have to be careful not to draw attention to himself, and to leave with the other none the wiser.

Solas dismounts and ties his horse to a different tree, this one with a thicker copse of grass at its stump, and creeps into the ruins, careful to stick to the shadows and silence his footsteps.

The ruins are as quiet as they had been when time had stood still. Solas scans the area, but sees nothing amiss. There is no immediate evidence of another’s presence. Still, he keeps his staff in hand as he turns and heads for the artifact, listening to the familiar song of his magic. There is enough moonlight pouring through the collapsed ceiling he does not need to summon veilfire to light his way.

The artifact is where he had last seen it: at the top of the stairs, tucked just behind a wall that separates a collapsed hallway and the main chamber. It has been untouched since its moving to this place, but there is power thrumming underneath its surface. Solas climbs the steps and rests his staff against the wall, placing his hands on the cold stone.

He takes a deep breath, and pushes a small amount of his magic into the stone. It sinks into the orb, and finds such a welling of power his knees buckle. Almost immediately after, he winds his power around the excess and brings his original thread back into himself, pulling his old, stored magic from the depths of the artifact.

A flash of emerald light has him seeing dancing afterimages behind his eyelids.

The power it releases startles even him. It is enough magic to fill his reserves thrice over, so much so it threatens to spill out of him. If that happened, the magic would empty into the air, and return to the Fade—an irrecoverable waste, one he _cannot_ allow.

So Solas digs his fingers into the crack in the sphere and grits his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut, struggling to keep the excess mana in check. He may as well have been holding a slippery eel. He bows over, exercising internal muscles long atrophied, straining to keep the magic within himself, so it will not bleed through his skin and dissipate in the air.

He is rigid, hunched over the artifact, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. At last, _at last_ , he feels his mana pool stretch to absorb the excess power—a sensation he has not experienced for many, many years—and grimaces at the soreness that reverberates throughout his body. Once he has absorbed all of the power the artifact offers, however, he relaxes, resting his forehead against the cool, cracked stone.

In. Out. In. Out. _Balance,_  he tells himself, and counts his breaths until his heart does not hammer quite so hard in his chest.

Still, he feels refreshed, and there are no warning signs of a headache. He is one step closer to regaining the power necessary for what he must do. Solas stands, breathing evenly, waiting until the burn in his lungs is not quite so potent. When he is recovered, he turns, and quietly descends the steps. Sand drifts under his feet, stirred by a faint breeze. He stiffens, wondering if someone had seen the flash of light from the artifact and come to investigate—

And then he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He moves away from the staircase, weaving around the pillars, and sees what had drawn his attention. He stills, his breath catching hard in his throat at the vision before him.

On the sandy platform where the rift had been, the Inquisitor is dancing.

No, he realizes, she is not dancing—not quite. She is practicing fighting stances, but she moves so fluidly between each of the poses she may as well be waltzing. Solas watches for a long instant. Her hair catches blue in the moonlight. Half of it is braided at the top of her head, keeping it out of her face, but the rest of it is loose, and flies about her shoulders whenever she turns.

She spins, and though he is too far away to fully see her face, he can comprehend the rigidity of concentration that stiffens in her back. Her arms and shoulders are too stiff, too hasty, though her feet carry her as though she is gliding through the air. She spins, twirling her staff and pointing it behind her as she twists toward the ground, and a bolt of blue-white lightning shoots from the skull at the end of her staff to leave a black mark on a fallen pillar.

“ _Finally_ ,” she says. Her voice echoes in the ruins.

She straightens, breathing hard, and resumes her task. Static dances at her feet, sometimes, but they are flickers, barely more accomplished than a novice. Every so often she will produce a single lightning bolt, though it takes time to build up the energy for it.

Still, she is entrancing. The grace of her carriage, the flow of her body as she practices her form, her determination to learn other schools of magic—Solas cannot tear his gaze from her. For an instant, he wonders if he is dreaming, wonders if the silver sands’ glow surrounding her is too sharp for the Fade. There is a weight in his chest where his heart should be, and he cannot find his voice to alert her to his presence.

Instead, he watches.

Her hair streams behind her, and he catches a glimpse of the curve of her cheek, the furrow of her brow as she practices—his gaze moves from her face, lingers on the slender arch of her throat before he catches himself. She turns on her heel, bringing her staff down in an balletic, brutal arc; when she draws herself up again, standing still in the ruins, the moonlight frames her silhouette in black. She waits for only half a heartbeat, and then she is moving again, practicing motions that resemble Dorian’s modus. Lightning sparks around her fingertips, bathing her frame in bluish-white light that catches in her hair. She lacks the Tevinter’s flair, but what she does not have in style she makes up tenfold in grace.

She is…

A spectre. A beauty. A human. A puzzle.

But if she were to be _more_ than that, if she is more than a dream, more than a shadow, more than a kiss—“Ah,” he murmurs, half a reminder and half a reprimand. A tremor runs through his chest, and he breathes an exhale, his fingers flexing around his staff.

He does not even think to leave, not until the Inquisitor’s dance slows. She comes to a stop, back to him, and rests her staff on the stone. She sighs, lifting her head toward the moonlight.

“Hello, Solas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school is kicking my ass. the commander of my heart is dead. ma vhenan wants to kill literally everyone. my fictional son is dead. at most, only a few of you will understand my non-solas references. but… this chapter is complete. FINALLY.
> 
> (carry on plays in the distance) 
> 
> ᕕ(ಥ~ಥ)ᕗ

Blue-tinted moonlight streams around her, encasing her form in a silver glow. She has discarded her old staff for the bone-tipped weapon that had powered the halting of time itself. The grinning skull has an ethereal shine to it as well, but it is far more macabre a sight.

“Inquisitor,” he allows, at last, while his mind races to determine when she had learned of his presence. He had not cast a cloaking barrier—an amateur mistake, one he will not repeat. She has proven more observant than most.

He must remember that.

She turns around, her lips pursed and her brows creased, forming a furrow up her forehead. He does not move, meeting her gaze full-on. “Apologies,” he says, at last, when she does not try to fill the silence between them. “I thought to explore these ruins further. I did not realize you were here. I did not mean to interrupt your practice.”

She cocks her head, her fingers flexing around her new staff. “There wasn't much to watch,” she admits, tucking a loose strand of black hair behind her ear. She flashes a self-deprecating smile.

“I disagree,” Solas says. “Already you have shown marked improvement from when I last saw you practice. Now you can summon electricity, at least.”

“At least, he says.” She huffs, looking away, but she's half-smiling. Her beauty marks are two dark dots underneath her eye, and he can see a shadowed dimple faint on her cheek. “This magic is so fickle. I do the same thing but I don't get the same result. I don't know how to make any cohesive attack that won't abandon me when I need it most.”

“If I may offer advice?”

She nods, and he sets his staff against a crumbling pillar before joining her side. “Take a position.”

She does, and he moves about adjusting her arms. She has a relatively good form, but there are several improvements that could be made—widening her stance, tucking her arms closer to her body, squaring her hips and shoulders. Small things, ultimately, but they aid in conducting electricity safely.

“Electricity is unique of all elements,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back as he scrutinizes. “A fire with extra tinder will not burn hotter, and a sheet of ice will numb and paralyze no matter how thick. But electricity—to be most effective, you must build it up, channel it properly throughout your body.”

“Show me?” she breathes, turning her head, eyes wide and a hint of a smile curving at a corner of her mouth.

Solas inhales citrus, and with it, realizes just how close they are. Her nose nearly brushes his cheek, and her back is inches away from his chest. He need only turn his head, and he could kiss her again. He longs for her touch, craves the comfort her warmth provides with a desperation that alarms him.

There are no stars in her eyes at this moment, but Solas is caught nonetheless. He stands suspended, torn between two rival desires. He mustmust _must_ step away, or else he will—he will do something regretful.

Her smile remains small, tentative, hopeful. It is the hope in her expression that destroys him. Solas shakes his head, just slightly, though his gaze remains fastened on her face. Clenching his hands behind his back, he finds the strength to draw away. The desert cold permeates their newfound distance and seeps, icelike, into his veins.

“Apologies,” he rasps. He clears his throat, looks toward the moons instead of her. “I am not a mage suited for electricity. You would be better served consulting Dorian.”

“Solas—”

“Inquisitor, _please_.”

She stares at him, utterly still, silverlight streaming around her. Then she laughs, looking away. “Right. Sorry. I've never been good at patience.” She looks back at him, smiling, though there is a mournful tilt to the curve of her lips. “Anyway, um, I found one of those braziers—you know, like the one we found in that cave in the Hinterlands.”

Solas's interest sharpens. “You found Veilfire?”

“Maybe?” She shrugs a shoulder. “I don't know. I haven't been able to summon anything. Want to see it?”

“Please,” he says. She jerks her head over her shoulder, turning on her heel, striding away without a word. He follows her to the back courtyard, where the sands are blackened by Tevinter soldiers and their blood. She ignores the corpses, taking him to a dark room bearing a few chairs and a desk. A wrought iron brazier rests on the desk's surface, too large for standard candles.

“How do you summon Veilfire?”

“One calls upon the Fade, as though calling upon flame, or electricity,” he says, approaching the desk. “Imagine it, will it to be, and it will be done.”

He lifts a hand toward the brazier. It is effortless, summoning the memory of fire from the Fade. Blue-green flames leap to life within the brazier, and unfurl in the cradle of his palm. The Veilfire is lukewarm, but shines so brightly he can see every corner of the room.

She gazes at the flame in his palm in open admiration. With a smile, he holds out his free hand. “May I?”

She stares at him, brow furrowing, and he gestures for her hand. “I—oh.” Face flushing, she covers his palm with her own, and he fights back a shiver at the warmth of her touch. He takes her wrist, turning her hand up, and deposits the Veilfire into the cradle of her palm.

“Concentrate,” he says. “See if you can make it grow.”

Her brow furrows and she steps away, resting her staff against the desk to nurse the flame with both hands. Her teeth snag her lower lip in her concentration and, after several long minutes, the Veilfire blossoms from a single lick of flame to a small blaze.

She laughs, a beautiful, breathless sound, and lifts her gaze to his, her eyes green-blue in the ethereal firelight. “Wow,” she whispers, returning her attention to the flames cupped in her hands.

“Good,” he praises, returning her smile when she turns it upon him. “Now, see if you can maintain it.”

She takes a few moments to think, but soon she nods, her brow furrowing in her concentration. Her hands spread, and the Veilfire splits, shrouding her palms in twin orbs of heatless blue light. Solas takes a step back, watching as she slowly sinks into one of the forms Dorian has taught her. His corrections have also made their mark: her shoulders are aligned with her hips, her elbows remain tucked close to her body, and her stance is wide enough that she will easily remain upright.

She closes her eyes, and begins her dance. Solas watches as she spins on her heel, going through a variety of Dorian's forms. Several times, the Veilfire in her palms flickers and nearly extinguishes, but she keeps a hold on it. When she sinks into a lunge and thrusts her palm forth, a spark of Veilfire shoots off, mimicking an attack—her eyes are still shut, so she does not see it, but Solas does.

He watches her glide across the tile, and when she smiles halfway through her motions, he blinks. Silver, blue, and green all clash together, bathing her in a halo of light under an indigo, star-studded sky; yet it is her smile that ties it all together, that makes her  _beautiful_. A tremor runs through his chest, settling in the pit of his stomach.

Once the Veilfire sputters out, Solas cannot stop his smile, though it is a tenuous, fragile thing. “Excellent,” he praises. “Can you call Veilfire forth?”

“I just— _imagine_ it, right?” she asks, her expression betraying her uncertainty. “That sounds too easy.”

“No. Envisioning what you wish to accomplish is part of the process, yes, but the Fade responds to _will_.”

She closes her eyes, cupping her hands together, and lets out a long, shaky breath. Her hands tremble. Solas steps closer, slides his palm under her conjoined hands, supporting her. “Are you afraid?” he asks, softly. She has been belittled enough for her ignorance of magic's uses, by Dorian, by herself. He will not add himself to that number.

“I'm afraid I'm going to fail, and look a fool,” she whispers back.

“How do you summon healing magic?” he asks. “It is the same process.”

She purses her lips, then releases another heavy sigh. The tension in her shoulders drains away, and she straightens, lifting her head and opening her eyes. Solas watches her as she stares at her palms. Slowly, _slowly_ , a green-blue spark unfurls in her hands. Her eyes widen, and it disappears, prompting a soft curse from her that makes Solas laugh.

She tries again, with better results. The infant flame grows to the size of a fist, and Solas pulls his hand away, tucking it behind his back. As the flame grows, so does her smile, until her dimples are shadows kissed into the hollows of her cheeks. “I'm doing it,” she says, half-disbelieving, and her laugh sends another strange tremor through him. “I— _wow_.”

When she looks up, green stars reflect in her eyes.

She closes her hand, extinguishing the flame and plunging the both of them into darkness. Solas's eyes adjust at once, supplanting the Veilfire with moonlight, and as the darkness grows more familiar to him he sees the Inquisitor take a step away, opening her palm again.

Blue lightning cracks, once, across her fingertips, and she laughs again. She twists on her heel, gesturing to a fallen block of stone, her hands crackling with electricity. A bolt of lightning—weak, but the best she has yet produced—strikes the stone, leaving a black scorch mark in its wake.

“Well done,” he says, and she turns toward him. Her grin is jubilant, but wavers at the edges, strangely fragile.

“Solas,” she says, voice thick, “ _Thank you_. You don't know what this means to me.”

“You are most welcome, Inquisitor,” he says, lifting his gaze to the moon. When he looks back at her, she is wrestling a crackling storm of static between her hands. Blue-white light shines on her face, reflecting in the darkness of her eyes. As she moves it between her hands, her brow furrowed in determination, a sharp _crack_ ricochets through the air, punctuated by her cry and the flash of her electricity as it disappears.

Her hand flies to her collarbone. She grimaces. “Damn, that hurts.”

Solas closes the distance, pulling her hand away. Her clothing is not stained, but that does not mean she is uninjured. “May I look?” he asks. When she nods, he carefully pushes her shirt aside, until he sees an angry burn on her collarbone, red even in the darkness.

A lightning tree has burned itself into her skin. Red marks shaped like vandal aria leaves stretch from the curve of her shoulder down to her elbow. There is nothing he can do for her, save perhaps ease the pain. It is the easiest thing, to press his thumb to the burn, and coat her skin in a soothing sheen of numbing cold.

When the tightness in the corners of her eyes recedes, he withdraws, straightening her shirt. She beams up at him, even as he clasps his hands behind his back and steps away. “Thanks,” she says.

“An elfroot salve will reduce any swelling, but I neglected to bring any. They will have one at camp.”

The Inquisitor lets out a breath, casting a glance around the silent courtyard. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

His mare nickers when she sees him, and he greets her with a pat on her forehead. He hears footsteps in the sand behind him, and looks over his shoulder. The Inquisitor does not look at him as she mounts her own horse—but she does wait for his horse to join her before she urges her gelding forward.

“We should discuss the Nightmare,” she ventures, and he nods. She sighs, lifts her face to the twin moons. “I’ll admit, I don’t have a damn clue on what to do. Are we just going to meet up in our dreams and go from there, or…?”

He nods. “I have not thought of anything concrete, other than deflecting its attentions until we can craft a permanent shelter within the Fade. It may be wise to seek out other spirits to reinforce our efforts, but I fear they will flee upon sensing the Nightmare. I believe your suggestion is our best option.”

Out of the corner of his eye, she glances at him, then looks away. “Solas, I wanted to thank you for helping me with this. I know you’d rather be off… watching memories, or something, instead of fending off the Nightmare with me. It means a lot.”

Solas inclines his head. “I am happy to do this, Inquisitor.”

She does not speak again until they have reached the Keep. A stableboy greets them, and he lets the boy put his mare to stall. “I will return,” he tells the Inquisitor, and ducks into his tent to find a salve. Vial in hand, he returns to the stables, only to stop short when he hears her humming.

It is a soft, wistful melody, lovely despite its mournfulness. Solas walks past the elven stableboy and stops at her stall. She’s feeding her horse a sugar cube, letting the beast lick her fingers clean before brushing down his withers. She does not stop her humming until Solas clears his throat. She jumps at the noise, cheeks pinking, eyes wide as she lifts her head and stares at him.

“Solas! Uh, hi.” She clears her throat and looks back at her horse. “Sorry you had to hear that.”

He ignores the self-disparagement, inclining his head instead. “I have never heard that tune. Is it a ballad?”

“Oh, it’s, um, it’s just a song. My sister and I sang it all the time. It’s called _The Highwayman’s Lover_. Very sad.”

“How so?”

At that, she grins at him, cheeks dimpling. He swallows. “I can’t spoil it for you! I’ll ask Maryden to sing it one day. Then you’ll have an excuse to be in the tavern.”

Solas smiles, wryly. “I would not count on it.”

She laughs at that, brushing her horse’s flank. “Doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying.”

He clears his throat, looks at the glass vial in his hand. “I have the salve.”

She lowers the brush, closes the distance until the only thing that stands between them is the stall door. Her fingertips brush against his palm as she moves to take the salve.

A strange, foreign impulse grips him. He almost pulls back, almost requests to administer the salve himself. But it is absurd, on many levels. She is a healer, and knows its arts far better than he does; and it would prompt unnecessary contact. He must uproot this weed, not water it.

So he lets her take the salve, tucks his hands behind his back, and looks away when she smiles at him.

“Thank you, Solas.”

Everything she says always sounds so _sincere._ It is a marvel, how she can imbibe every word with such earnestness. Nothing she says seems false. He would know; he is a master of deception in most things. Her smile is genuine, and it makes some tremulous emotion wrap heavy around his heart. He swallows, steeling his expression into one of neutrality. “You are most welcome, Inquisitor.”

He turns, acutely aware of the stableboy just a few stalls away, but stills at her soft, “Solas?”

When he looks at her, she smiles, pressing the vial to her chest. “Goodnight,” she whispers. He tilts his head, returning the farewell, and watches as she leaves him to his solitude. Once she is gone, he goes to his mare. The stableboy is brushing her down.

The boy doesn't look at him as he says, “Anything I can do for you, messere?”

“Ah—yes, thank you. If you could ask one of the kitchen staff to bring me some tea, I would appreciate it.”

The stableboy nods, feeding the horse a sugar cube. “I'll get right on that. Have a good night.”

It is a quiet night, and warmer than most evenings in the Western Approach. Many of the Keep's windows glow with candlelight, and as he walks underneath one he can hear the distant roar of the Qunari and his mercenaries. When he reaches his tent, he finds his quill, ink, and parchment, and quickly sets about writing his letter.

It is a simple correspondence, detailing his encounter with the artifact from the ruins, including detailed sketches. _Find as many as you can_ , he writes, _then alert me of their locations. I will activate them personally. Keep them safe by any means necessary_.

When his tea arrives, he is sealing his letter. He does not look at the girl as she enters the tent and sets down the tray beside him. “My thanks.”

The girl curtseys, a nervous smile gracing her lips. “Anything else you need, messere?”

“Yes, please.” Solas lifts the letter, and she tucks it into a sewn pocket within her sleeve. “Ensure that is delivered to Skyhold's herbalist. It is for her eyes only.”

“Of course. Good night, messere.” She curtseys again and bows out, leaving him alone with his tea.

Solas ignores the tea as he casts a silencing barrier to muffle the outside world. When the din of soldiers quiets at last, he climbs into his bedroll and closes his eyes.

 

 

 

She is already asleep when Solas enters the Fade. It is an easy thing, to seek out her dreaming mind. Her presence in the Fade is a bright thing, a warmth that pulls him into the force of her orbit. When he enters her dream, the warmth vanishes, quickly doused by chilled rain and a clash of thunder.

Solas shields his eyes against the driving rain and makes out a fortress through the gloom. He and the building are separated by a long walkway, which crumbles into the sea. A dark laugh shivers down his spine, and Solas walks forward.

“Dread Wolf,” the Nightmare greets him, in Elgar’nan’s voice. “You interfere in hunts not your own. She escaped me; it is my right to reclaim my prey.”

“She is not your quarry,” Solas retorts, his words punctuated by a flash of lightning. He reaches the broken end of the bridge, and as the stone crumbles under his feet, he closes his eyes. The power he had taken in the waking world thrums through his veins, and when he lifts his hand, the bridge reassembles itself.

The Nightmare snarls as Solas crosses the bridge, and pushes open the door with a flick of his wrist. He is met with a dead end, but the bricks give way under his touch, pulling back and forming a tunnel. “I will not let you find her,” the Nightmare vows. “She is _mine!_ ”

Solas does not deign the fearling with a response. The Nightmare has been weakened by the Inquisition’s attack and Hawke’s assault, and he has grown stronger. At this point, finding the Inquisitor is not a matter of _if_ , but _when_.

Instead, he pushes forward, and opens the first door he sees. The room he steps into is dark, lit only by Veilfire torches. A door is on either side of him, but what captures his attention is the Inquisitor in the center of the room.

She is suspended from the ceiling by her wrists, her toes brushing the cold stone. Her body is bruised, bloodied, and her head lolls to the side. Her breaths are shallow, pained things, hardly audible despite the silence of the room. She yet lives, but she is close to death.

Solas stiffens. _No_. If she dies in the Fade—all would be lost. They would fall to Corypheus, and the world would burn in raw chaos. He takes a hesitant step forward, scanning her chains for vulnerable points that could easily break under strain of ice.

Elgar’nan steps from behind the Inquisitor’s corpse. His golden eyes glitter despite his half-shadowed face. “Dread Wolf. I wondered when you would come to see our prisoner.” He takes the Inquisitor’s chin in hand, and Solas fists his hands behind his back. Elgar’nan switches from Elvhen to Common easily. “Look, Inquisitor. Your betrayer comes at last.”

Solas goes cold. Elgar’nan lifts the Inquisitor’s chin, and in the light of the Veilfire he can see evidence of torture on her body. Bruised eyes, and bloodied lip; a hard anger in her eyes. “Her betrayer?” Solas asks, incredulous.

“You captured her yourself,” Elgar’nan says, smiling. He pulls away, and the Inquisitor whimpers, head falling back to her chest. “Do you forget so easily? It was but half a year ago.”

The worst part is—he _does_ have those memories. He recalls with perfect clarity the compromises he’d made with the released Evanuris, and how he had cut through Inquisition soldiers to get to her. He remembers her expressions: horror, anger, betrayal.

 _It is the Nightmare’s doing_ , he reminds himself, straightening his back.

“To you, perhaps,” Solas says, then blasts Elgar’nan back with a burst of force. It takes the Evanuris aback, and grants Solas enough time to freeze and break the chains that suspend her. She collapses with a wordless groan, but he is close enough to catch her. He wraps one arm around her waist and winds another under her knees, lifting her into his arms.

She blinks up at him, eyes glazed by pain. “Solas?”

“You’re safe,” he says. Elgar’nan roars in fury, and Solas turns to the door on his left. He throws up a wall of ice just as a fireball collides with his barrier, dissipating inches from his face. The wall is enough to stall the Evanuris, long enough that Solas is able to push open the left door with his shoulder and bar it behind him.

The Inquisitor whimpers as he kneels and lowers her to the ground, cradling her close. His pulse roars in his ears, and his hands shake as his fingers drift over her torso, searching for more grievous wounds than bruises. “You changed your mind,” she whispers, punctuating her sentence with a cough.

Solas holds her tighter, healing what he can. He cannot allow her to die in the Fade. And though he and Elgar’nan spoke in Elvhen, he will have to wipe her memory come morning. “This is a dream, Inquisitor. I would not—”

Her fingertips touch his cheek, devastatingly gentle, and he stills, meeting her gaze in the gloom. “Harellan,” she whispers, and dissolves in his arms.

Solas stiffens, staring at his empty hands with wide eyes. A cold dread wraps itself around his chest. No. _No._ She could not have—

The Nightmare’s laughter stills his thoughts, and Solas closes his eyes as the fearling jeers in his ear. “Such _terror_ , Dread Wolf. I did not think it would be so sweet. Perhaps I will enjoy this chase after all.”

Solas rises to his feet and turns, but the door that led to the prison is gone. In its place is a wolf mosaic, its slanted red eyes glaring down at him. Its fur shines black, near-indistinguishable from the rest of the mosaic save its silver lining. A veilfire torch comes to life beside one of its forelegs, and Solas fishes it from its support, glowering.

The fearling had _tricked_ him. He had walked into an amateur’s snare.

He will not make such a mistake again.

As he sets down the shadowed hall, he passes several doors. He stops before each of them and sends out a wave of probing magic, only to discover nothing but more dreams. Every attempt leeches his mana. After the fifth door, his temples begin to ache.

At the seventh door, half-drained of mana and saddled with a headache, Solas feels _her._

He enters the room at once, torch raised high, but he does not need it, because the prison he enters is filled with glowing red lyrium.

The scarlet glow casts an eerie light over her face. She is chained to the floor, eyes red-rimmed, perilously close to the blighted lyrium. Her clothes are torn, and tearstains shine on her face despite the grime. When she looks up, she sobs.

“Solas,” she says, and he steps forward. She sits up, chains rattling. Beads of red lyrium dot her shoulders, casting a red haze around her skin. “Solas, what are you—you have to _leave!_ Please, go, before they come back—”

“I will not leave you here,” he insists. The cell lock shatters under his touch, and he steps over an outcrop of blighted lyrium. Heavy footsteps thunder above them, loosening dust from the ceiling. Solas works steadily, freezing and then breaking her chains, until her wrists and ankles are free.

The Nightmare snarls in his ear, cursing in Elvhen filled with such vitriol Solas must hold back a flinch. Solas ignores the demon and pulls the Inquisitor forward, pressing his lips against her ear. She clings to him, burying her face against his shoulder. “This is a dream,” he whispers, ignoring the blistering heat of her body. Faint shouts echo down the hall, and the thudding footsteps grow louder. “Inquisitor, I cannot keep the Nightmare at bay for much longer. You must think of somewhere safe for the both of us.”

“I can’t,” she chokes out, her hands bunching in his tunic.

“You can,” he hisses. “Use the Anchor.”

The door splinters as it is kicked open. Solas hears a man with a Tevinter accent shouting, but the castle is already falling away. As the stones dissolve, the storm howls its way into the room. The red lyrium sizzles from the rainwater. The Inquisitor whimpers, clutching him tighter, and Solas closes his eyes.

For a long moment, all he can hear are the Venatori shouts, the wind in his ears, and the deafening claps of thunder.

But then—the storm stills, and all goes silent. Solas’s sigh of relief shudders through him, and though he does not release the Inquisitor, he opens his eyes to observe their surroundings.

They are on a coastline. Beach grass sways around them, and the waves are gentle, though the sky is a foreboding gray. Footsteps are imprinted in the sand, but their trail turns into to a well-tread path leading to a white cottage, nestled on a hill.

“What is this place?” he asks, pulling away from her. The Inquisitor looks up. Now that they are out of the Nightmare’s domain, she is free of the red lyrium. The sight eases some of the unease that still lingers.

_Harellan._

She climbs to her feet, and he follows. She shakes her head, frowning. “I didn’t think of a place,” she replies.

“What did you think of, then?”

Instead of answering, she starts for the cottage. Daisy shrubs frame the front door, and the windowsills also bear flowers. The Inquisitor glances at him over her shoulder, then reaches for the doorknob. The door is unlocked.

As they step into the entryway, someone inside the cottage strums a lute. The Inquisitor stiffens, head turning, and her eyes shine with unshed tears. She covers her mouth with a hand, but cannot conceal her dimpled smile.

The lute player begins to sing.

 _“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,_  
_But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;_  
_Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,_  
_Then look for me by the moonlight,_  
_Watch for me by the moonlight,_   
_I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”_

The Inquisitor’s swallow is an audible thing, and her next breath turns into a half-sob. “Julie?” she calls, voice hoarse. The lute falls silent. “Julie, is that you?”

A pause. “Sis?” a voice calls back.

The Inquisitor runs. Solas follows her into a blue-lit chamber that smells of the sea. It is a drawing room, of sorts: a harpsichord sits in the far corner, a painting of a meadow above it; bookshelves cover the rest of the wall before him. Two sofas sit perpendicular to each other, facing an empty hearth.

On one of them sits a woman, bearing a lute and staring at them with wide eyes. She is not the Inquisitor—her hair is not as dark, her eyes are more hazel than black, and she does not have twin freckles at the corner of her left eye—yet she is similar enough that it takes Solas aback.

The woman stands, resting the lute against a sofa, and holds out her arms. The Inquisitor’s breath hitches as she closes the distance between them, pulling the woman into a fierce embrace. The woman holds her tight, whispering things too softly for Solas to hear. The Inquisitor’s shoulders heave with her sobs, and Solas turns away, examining the meadow painting.

This is a private moment. He should not be here. He should…

He cannot leave, but he can respect what little privacy she has, in this shared dream.

The Inquisitor sniffs. Solas turns back to see her pulling away, wiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says, then covers her mouth with a shaking hand. She closes her eyes, and a few more tears slip down her cheeks. After a long, shuddering breath, she lowers her hand and attempts a smile. It looks more akin to a grimace. Solas’s chest tightens at the sight.

“Solas,” she says, gesturing to her companion, “this is my sister, Julianna Trevelyan. Well—a copy of her, anyway. She’s not really…” She wipes at her eyes again, breath catching, and turns away.

The sister smoothly steps forward, shielding the Inquisitor from his view.

“Hello, Solas,” says the sister, her lips curving upward. She has no dimples, but her smile has the Inquisitor’s same vibrancy, the same sincerity. “Thank you for keeping my sister safe.” With a small laugh, she adds, “Maker knows someone needs to look out for her, since she has no concept of self-preservation at all.”

“Andraste’s grace,” the Inquisitor rasps. A hand covers her eyes, and a finite tremor runs through her shoulders. “You sound _just_ like her.”

The sister turns, her hands folding against her stomach. “Would you like me to leave?”

“No,” the Inquisitor cuts her off, lowering her hand and turning around. She swallows. “Please don’t go.”

Solas looks around the room, taking in the jasmine blossoms above the hearth, the illustrations of flowers and birds that adorn the walls. A stone weighs on his chest. No doubt that if the Nightmare was not a threat, the Inquisitor would not want him here to witness her vulnerability. This is a deeply private moment, for her mind only, and he is trespassing.

He turns away, lowers his head when he hears the Inquisitor confess lowly, “I miss you.”

_I didn’t think of a place._

Solas closes his eyes, a low sigh escaping him.

The Nightmare surges forward again, its redoubled attack driving a spike of pain behind Solas’s eye. As it claws at his barrier, the book titles blur, becoming colors rather than words. Solas clenches his jaw and pushes the fearling back. He succeeds, but barely, and at the cost of a pounding migraine.

When he looks up, the books have titles once again. He picks one at random, ignoring the Inquisitor and her sister’s hushed conversation. He crosses to the harpsichord in the corner, sits at the bench, and opens to the first page. However, he cannot concentrate enough to read a word. After several minutes of hearing nothing but his pulse in his ears, Solas glances outside.

The sky is a thick sheet of gray, and the frothing sea is capped in white. Every so often, purple lightning streaks across the sky, but thunder never follows. There will not be a break from the storms, not while the Nightmare hounds them.

Solas returns to his attempts to read, and does his best to leave the Inquisitor in peace.

 

 

 

He wakes to the Inquisitor sitting by his bedside. Her eyes are red, and she holds a small stone in one clenched hand. “Could you walk with me?” she asks. Solas takes a moment, still blinking sleep from his eyes, and nods. She ducks out of the tent; he changes and enters the courtyard to see her staring at the lightening sky. Streaks of pink and cream already adorn the horizon, heralding sunrise.

To his surprise, many of the horses are in the courtyard, hooked up to empty wagons. Soldiers are loading them with supplies, conversing quietly among themselves. None are dressed for battle. Officers walk around, ducking into tents to wake more troops and emerging with another scratch to their checklist.

The Inquisitor begins walking, and he follows. “We’re going back to Skyhold. Josephine’s supply shipment is on its way, and we’re leaving a large garrison to combat the darkspawn. It’ll take a few weeks to build a pass over the sulfur pits, and I don’t think the troops should wait that long to get out of this heat.”

“Ah.” Solas tilts his head. “So we will return to Skyhold soon, then.”

“You can go, if you like. I’m staying behind with a small team. There’s a few more things I need to do, first.” She climbs another flight of stairs and pushes open a door, leading him to an abandoned tower. Its lone window gives them a view of the desert. A slat of golden sunlight is streaked across the floor.

“I will remain,” he says, and wonders if he imagines the relief in her smile.

The Inquisitor stops in front of the window, resting an elbow on the ledge and her chin in her hand. Her smile fades as she stares at the desert, the corners of her reddened eyes soft with grief. Her free hand rolls the stone between her fingers. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” she says at last. Solas blinks, eyebrows rising. Before he can reply, she closes her eyes.

“Weak,” she clarifies. Her voice shakes.

Solas joins her side, staring at her, but she will not look at him. “Grief is not a weakness,” he says, firmly. She swallows thickly, glancing down; still she will not look at him. He sighs through his nose and looks out the window, observing the barren wasteland that stretches before them. “I myself was about to apologize for trespassing upon your privacy.”

Her fingers stop toying with the stone. “Julianna became a Templar for me. She wanted to be a bard, the Orlesian kind, because she thought it would be an _adventure_. She would’ve loved the Inquisition. All of it. The traveling, the people, the danger… she should have been the Inquisitor.”

“And yet I suspect she would say the same of you,” Solas murmurs.

Her face crumples, and she lifts a hand to cover her face. The stone tumbles from her grip and clatters across the floor. He has the strangest urge to comfort her, somehow, whether through pulling her close or simply taking her hand. Instead, he keeps his hands at his sides.

Her breath is a shallow thing, and her voice is thick. “Do you ever just—miss someone so much it physically _hurts_?”

Solas exhales, quietly, bites back his instinctive reply. He grieves the loss of his people, but it is not a loss she would understand. “It is natural to long for the things we have lost, Inquisitor. But it is better to let the dead rest.” _You hypocrite_ , he thinks, bitterly.

“How did you cope with Wisdom’s death?” she manages, lowering her hand and staring at him. Her words awaken an old, unhealed hurt. Solas closes his eyes, turning his face away. “How do you heal from that kind of loss? It’s been months. I try, but I can’t _let it go!_ ”

“It will always hurt,” he says, looking at her. His voice is thick, and it is hard to swallow the lump in his throat. “There is nothing you can do, except endure.”

He is not expecting her to move forward. He is not expecting her to wrap her arms around him and rest her cheek over his heart. Her tears are warm as they soak through his tunic, and her fingers press into the space between his shoulderblades.

Solas exhales heavily and, after a moment, returns her embrace. He wraps an arm around her, and cups the back of her head with the other, stroking her hair. For a long moment, they hold each other, wreathed in sunlight.

He cannot remember the last time he was touched—not for healing, but for the sake of it. She had held him as he grieved Wisdom’s loss, and though he is the one comforting her now, the feeling of her in his arms is… indescribable. He cannot think of what that implies, what that _means_. His heart hammers so hard he can feel his pulse in his fingertips, and wonders if she can feel the force of his heartbeat.

She is a warm weight in his arms, and the contact grounds him. Her touch makes him aware of every minuscule sound, every near-inaudible breath, every dust mote highlighted by the sun. He is aware of _her_.

He has never been more thankful, or more fearful.

“Thank you for listening,” she whispers into his shirt. “Thank you for being kind.”

Solas closes his eyes. He cannot bring himself to answer; there are no words suitable for the task. He responds by tightening his hold on her.

It has been a long time since anyone called him _kind_ , and longer still since he deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes (song version by Loreena McKennitt)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's this? i have two major final projects due, you say?  
> ... sounds fake, but ok
> 
> side note: translations are hovered over the elvhen. move ur mouse cursor over the words and it should appear.

He sees her again that very afternoon, when he joins her, Cole, the Qunari, the Warden, and the da’len on their expedition to finish off what tasks remain. The fortress feels empty without the majority of the Inquisition’s troops; of the Inner Circle, only he, Cole, the da’len, the Warden and the Qunari remain. Half of them split off to see to the draconologist; he, the Warden, and the da’len are sent to the abandoned Grey Warden fortress where they first confronted Erimond, to clear out the bandits that had taken up residence there.

His companions ride ahead of him, and though Solas does not pay attention to their conversation, he keeps his gaze fixed on the back of the girl’s head. The da’len before him is crude, utterly dismissive of her heritage, and it _rankles_ him, in a way that makes even his encounters with the Dalish seem amicable by comparison.

He doubts she knows a word of Elvhen; he is not even entirely certain she can read, or write. She is the embodiment of to what depths the People had fallen, and her fear of magic is the opposite of what _should_ be. In Elvhenan, her bare skin would have marked her of noble birth. She would have been encouraged to pursue her passion for archery, though her natural gifts in magic would have of course been tutored.

The da’len tilts her head back, laughing at something her friend has said, and when her crass snickers fall silent an idea strikes. Solas keeps his gaze on her as he says, “Ar dirthan’as ir elgara, ma’sula e’var vhenan?”

It takes all of one heartbeat for the child to turn around and blow him a raspberry. Solas’s grip on his mare’s reins tightens. “Excuse me?”

The da’len shrugs, turning back around. “Excuse yourself. Whatever you said and what I did, it’s all the same to me.”

All elves, even those not of the People, felt the rhythm of his language. It was a language of poetry, of lyrics. Elvhen was not meant to be spoken, it was meant to be _felt_ , instinctively understood with the heart. Had she truly not felt—?

“I’d hoped,” he begins, faltering in the face of such an unexpected response, “I’d hoped, well—our people can sometimes feel the rhythm of the language despite lacking the vocabulary.”

The da’len makes a dismissive noise, and Solas clenches his jaw. “Uh huh. Know what else is good? Words that mean things. Like this.” She looks at him over her shoulder, eyes wide, lips moving deliberately slowly, exaggerating her speech. “ _Wooords.”_

How entirely predictable. He had reached out and she had scorned his attempt. What had he expected? Though the Dalish had been worse in their treatment, they had at least been proud of claiming themselves as a part of the People. This girl did not want even that.

More fool him, for even attempting to find some common ground with her.

He cannot even remember why he had decided to speak with her, when it is so clear to him now that any contact with her is like speaking to the deaf. Useless, and a waste of effort.

“Fenhedis lasa,” Solas hisses, and the girl’s ever-so-clever response is another raspberry.

Fortunately, it is not a long ride to the bandits’ camp, and though the wind brings a blessed relief from the ever-oppressive desert heat, it also carries sand. Solas lifts his scarf to keep the worst of it out of his nose and mouth, though he cannot stop it from getting into his eyes.

The bandits are laughably easy to dispatch, especially when his anger fuels his focus. Their corpses carry little in the way of goods, except water. While the Warden ties extra water skins to his horse’s pack, and the da’len steals the men’s coin, Solas examines their weapons.

On the lone mage, he finds a corrupting rune, wrapped in a thick cloth. Despite the barrier, Solas’s hands itch when he picks it up, and gooseflesh runs up his arms when he puts it in his pack.

The Warden knows the meeting point with the Inquisitor, and this time he takes the lead. The da’len rides beside him, but Solas keeps her in his periphery, preferring instead to stare at the clear blue sky and relishing what few breezes brush against his overheated skin.

“Beardy!” the da’len calls, breaking his concentration.

“Fuzzyhead,” the Warden replies, without glancing in their direction.

She giggles, manic, and says, “Grand! You know, Beardy, I like you. You don’t talk about elfy stuff.”

Solas pinches the bridge of his nose, releasing a heavy breath. A muscle in his jaw ticks as he grits his teeth. “Like you’d know what you’re talking about,” the Warden says. The da’len stutters out a response and ends her answer with a defiant _pffth_ , her deep sunburn exacerbating her embarrassment.

Juvenile.

Once he has a moment of privacy with the Inquisitor, he will have to ask her to ensure he is never paired with these two again.

His companions keep the conversation contained between themselves, thankfully, and they reach the meeting place soon enough. The Inquisitor is not there, but there is an Orlesian clothed head-to-toe in red velvet, his outfit complete with a full golden-painted mask and silver armguards. Solas cannot help but feel a pang of sympathy for the poor man, but his disdain—what man wears velvet in a desert?—soon outweighs it.

“Ah, are you with the Inquisition?” the Orlesian asks once he sees them approaching on horseback. He wears a hat, but the shade would not keep out the heat; the dark red of his outfit is not enough to hide the sweatstains on his torso or underarms.

The man will die of heatstroke at this rate; it’s only a matter of time.

“Indeed,” Solas says, urging his horse forward. “We were meant to rendez-vous with the Inquisitor here when our tasks were done.”

“Ah, I see, I see. The Inquisitor left half an hour ago to collect some bait for me,” the Orlesian informs them. “I do not know when that lovely woman will return, but your Inquisition’s scouts have informed me the area where we intend to bait the Abyssal High Dragon has been tampered with. They believe that raiders have replaced our bait with their own poisoned meat. It would speed the process exponentially if you could deal with the raiders for me.”

After a long moment of silence, Solas hears the Warden sigh. “Well, it’s not like we have anything better to do.”

“Or we could go to the camp a hundred paces away,” says the da’len, jerking her head in the camp’s direction. “Get some shade and water, and wait for Her Gracious Ladybits to return, yeah?” Solas looks at her over his shoulder, only to see the Warden doing the same thing. The da’len looks between each of them, her sunburned face scrunching in displeasure, before she shrugs. “Yeah, whatever, let’s go stick some pissbags with arrows instead.”

“If the Inquisitor returns before we do, please inform her of our whereabouts,” Solas tells the Orlesian. The man nods, and turns back to his parchment notes, held down by an assortment of desert stones.

The raiders are of the like that had plagued the Warden outpost; though the raiders are rested and more numerous, and they are weary from a prior battle, they handily defeat the so-called White Claws. Solas does not know what they intend to raid in this wasteland, other than perhaps Inquisition supply lines, but he cannot particularly bring himself to care.

The da’len finds a cave full of Chantry riches; it is cool, and wide enough to stable their horses, with room to spare. If they are to fight a dragon, the last thing they need is the Abyssal making off with their mounts. They return to the clearing, and Solas rests in the shade of one of the sandstone pillars, gaze charting over the poisonous fumes that drift into the air.

This land had been fertile, once, before the corrupted guardian had ravaged it beyond redemption. Solas tries to picture swaying prairies, or gushing rivers banked with emerald grass. Yet, staring at the fumes, he can only imagine the destruction of the battlefield this place had once been.

At the sound of hoofbeats, Solas turns, adjusting his grip on his staff, preparing for battle. But it is not more White Claws, as he had feared, but the Inquisitor and her party, accompanied by the researcher. All save the researcher dismount. The Qunari carries several packs slung across his shoulders. He hands one to the Inquisitor, who dumps it into an emptied trap.

Meat spills out. Solas cannot help but wrinkle his nose at the smell, even as he rises and goes to the Inquisitor’s side to aid her. She laughs easily with her companions, sympathizing with the da’len over their sunburns, and says, “All right, team, once this is done we can go back to Skyhold!”

The Warden and the Qunari’s collective groans of appreciation are cut short, however, by a shadow blotting out the sun. The Abyssal they had seen earlier dives into the fumes with a screeching roar, and the Inquisitor curses.

The Qunari’s laughter is punctuated by another scream. The warrior reaches for his greataxe with a gleam in his eye. “Boss, I want you to know: you’re the best.”

“Fuck,” she whispers, her curse audible in the sudden desert silence. “This wasn’t part of the plan. Sera, Solas, go point. Remember, when she lifts her wings, you need to get to her legs as fast as possible. Frederic, get back! _Fuck_. Solas, you have potions in your pack?”

“Indeed, Inquisitor,” he calls back.

“Shite,” the da’len swears, taking up refuge in the shadows of the pillars. “Shite, fuck, _balls_.”

Despite her profanity, she does not sound frightened, only full of nervous energy. Solas joins her side, tying the pouch of extra potions and the corrupting rune to his belt, planting his staff in the sand. The wood feels too hot under his palm.

“Inquisitor, if things go south, there’s a cave down that hill,” the Warden says. He unsheathes his sword and drops the visor on his helmet, turning his body to face the fast-approaching dragon. “Everyone back!”

Before the Inquisitor can move, the dragon lands. The impact of it shakes the earth and stirs up a faint breeze, lifting the Inquisitor’s coattails. The dragon lowers her head, golden-red eyes boring into the Inquisitor, each of her hot breaths shifting the sand under the Inquisitor’s feet. Her wings stretch high above the sand, blotting out the sun.

For an instant, the Inquisitor and the high dragon stare at each other, woman and beast, in silence. The warriors creep around the dragon, utilizing her blind spots to position themselves at her hind legs. And then he hears the researcher’s _by Andraste_ and the dragon opens her maw.

The Inquisitor plants her staff in the sand, and  the warriors run toward the hind legs. The skull’s eyes glow blue, and a barrier springs to life, just as the dragon releases a barrage of flames. Fire parts across the blue, scattering purple light over the Inquisitor and her circle of sand. The da’len and the warriors move in as one, then, as the two men attack her hind legs and the girl releases an explosive arrow that makes the dragon flinch away. Green smoke curls just behind her horns, and Cole straddles her neck, driving his daggers in deep before disappearing again.

The Inquisitor finds refuge among the pillars, pressing herself against the stone, eyes wide and clutching her staff to her chest. “Shit,” she swears, but Solas can barely hear her over the rush of blood in his ears. He cannot damage the creature with fire. He knows precious few ice spells, and is next to useless regarding electricity. The Inquisitor is better suited to healing and protection.

“Give me your staff,” he says, holding out his own. “Fire will not harm her, and we need your healing magic.”

Understanding dawns in her eyes, and they exchange weapons. Her staff does not sing as naturally to his magics, of course, but the sheer _power_ that shivers through him is unexpected. Is this what she had felt when she had pulled it from the ruins?

The dragon’s scream brings his attention back, and he looks up to see the creature lifting herself into the air, flying toward the ruins. Solas grabs the Inquisitor and pulls her from the shadows, finding safety in the sunlight as the dragon perches atop the largest of the ruins and destroys the rest with a single swing of her tail.

“Eat it!” the da’len calls, loosing an arrow. It sticks between two sensitive scales at the dragon’s throat, and she screams in pain, eyes blazing as she jumps in front of the da’len. The Qunari is quick to distract her, however, swinging his greataxe and lodging it in her flank. The dragon jumps, turning to face the warrior, and Solas takes his chance.

He summons a static cage. As the sky is clear, he cannot call upon an existing storm, but must pull the electricity straight from the Fade. It gives him a fresh headache, but serves its purpose well enough. Lightning sparks over her scales, slowing her down, but she still manages to knock the Qunari back with a single swipe of her hind leg. Solas keeps his companions in his peripheral, even as sweat stings at his eye and makes his clothes stick to him.

When the dragon lifts her wings, Solas Fade-steps forward. He drives the blade of the Inquisitor’s staff into the meat of her thigh, gritting his teeth as bitter blood sprays across his face. Gusts buffet him, but he keeps his feet, waiting for the windstorm to clear.

When he once more takes up point by the cliffs, the girl is bleeding, and several rocks have been dislodged from their places. Craters of dark earth stand out starkly against the yellow sands. “What’re you looking at, elfy?” the girl asks, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the dirt. She reaches for another arrow, pulling from her half-empty quiver, and notches it. “Go after— _how’s she got Bull?_ ”

Solas turns, only to see the Qunari stagger from a pile of ruins, blood pouring down his neck, and collapse to the ground. He does not rise. Solas holds out a hand, keeping the girl from running to his side, and even as he calls forth another barrage he keeps an eye out for the Inquisitor.

And—yes, there she is, weaving around the Warden and Cole and throwing another barrier over the two of them. The high dragon jumps again, landing in front of the Inquisitor, the only obstacle between her and the fallen Qunari.

The Inquisitor skids to a stop. She looks up, taking a step back as the shadow falls across her. The dragon huffs, bleeding from several places, and bares four rows of sharp teeth at her foe. Instead of opening her maw, however, the dragon only shrieks, lifting her foreleg. Solas starts to run as she brings her claws down in a wide, vicious arc.

Solas feels his eyes go wide. The scream that rips from his throat is a guttural, unrecognizable thing. “ _No!_ ”

His Fade-step is unconscious, instinctual. In the next heartbeat he is pushing her aside, and putting himself where she had stood seconds before. Solas barely has time to recover from the Fade-step before the dragon’s claws rake across his torso, bringing fire in their wake. He staggers back, gasping, his hand automatically going to his abdomen as his knees buckle. Solas clutches at his staff, but he cannot keep his balance and falls to the ground. Sand bites at his cheek and his fingers are cold. Blood seeps between his fingers, thick and hot and dripping onto the sand. He breathes, but the sound is ragged, and he cannot hear anything past his pulse in his ears.

Someone grabs him by his pack, but the strap snaps, and the bag tumbles to the ground, spilling its contents. Several health potions and water skins break on the impact, and the corrupting rune rolls out, its magic sizzling in the air.

Faintly, he hears the Inquisitor scream his name, and as he looks up he sees her sprint toward him. The dragon swipes at her again, and she ducks, sliding in the sand to avoid the blow. The Warden runs behind her, lifting his sword and slicing through the dragon’s wing membrane. The creature’s roar of pain vibrates through him, and she jumps away, exposing him to the sun once more.

He cannot breathe.

She’s cursing, even as she kneels by his side, wide-eyed with terror. “I hate dragons,” she confesses, pressing a shaking hand to his torso. She manages to find an unbroken potion among the scattered contents of his pack, and holds the glass to his lips.

Solas gulps down three mouthfuls and then rasps, “The dragon—”

She looks over her shoulder. Cole is the last one standing, diverting the dragon’s attention while the Warden—bloodied and with rent armor—downs a health potion. Then she looks back, and Solas follows her gaze to see the girl forcing a health potion down the unconscious Qunari’s throat.

“Sera, give me one of your mist grenades,” she calls, and the girl tosses her a red-pink grenade. The Inquisitor uncorks it with her teeth, and a white fume drifts into the air. She holds it under his nose, instructing him to breathe, and the pain in Solas’s lungs subsides for the moment.

“I’ll be back,” she assures him, panic in her eyes. Solas cannot reply, can only watch as she picks up the corrupting rune. She rolls the mist grenade underneath the dragon, then darts to stand underneath the belly of the beast. Solas watches as she unfolds the linen protecting the corrupting rune and lifts a hand, pressing the raw rune directly to the dragon’s flesh.

The dragon’s scream is so loud it rings in his ears. Solas winces, already picturing the damage as the rune works its influence—blackened flesh curling away from bone, burning a hole into her organs and causing indescribable pain. The dragon curls up on herself, howling, and the Inquisitor runs toward the Warden.

Black spots swarm his vision, and his breathing sounds shallow to his own ears. His fingers are cold, even with the blood that coats his skin.

“Ah, shit,” he hears the Qunari rumble. “Hang on, boss! I’m coming!”

“Shut up, you,” says the da’len. “Inky said you need to get elfy to the cave. You can carry him with a broke arm, yeah? I still gotta fight.”

“Yeah,” the oxman rumbles. Solas swallows, turning his head, but the pain fogs his mind. He is only distantly aware of the Qunari hefting him up into his arms, as though Solas weighs nothing. The sun beats down on him, and though he does not move, the world seems to spin.

His eyelids are heavy, and his lungs burn. His fingers don’t respond to his attempts to move his hand. Solas closes his eyes, and focuses only on his breathing, on his pitiable attempts to staunch the blood flow.

He can still hear the dragon’s cries. He can also hear the whispered curses of the Qunari carrying him to safety, mixed with empty reassurances of his well-being. The sunlight paints the backs of his eyelids a burnished orange.

The cool damp of the cave makes it easier to breathe, somewhat, though it jars when the Qunari sets him down, surprisingly gentle despite his size. Solas opens his eyes, squinting against the bright blue visible from the cave mouth, and does not protest when the oxman scrounges up an extra potion and holds the lip of the vial to his mouth with his good hand.

The warrior’s fingers are shortened, and his ring finger still carries a scar from a knife. He had never noticed such details before. Solas swallows three gulps and gasps when the Qunari pulls the vial away. “We have to go back,” he rasps. Despite his words, he cannot muster the strength to sit up. “She—she needs us.”

The cave echoes with a faint scream that sounds alarmingly human. The Qunari swears, moves his broken arm to grip his harness, and gets to his feet, staggering to the mouth of the cave so he can see the fight.

Solas cannot see his face is thunderous, but he notes how the Qunari’s good hand balls into a fist. He strikes the wall with a growl, every muscle in his back stiffening. “She got Sera. _Shit_. Come on, boss, you got this. Blackwall, don’t you— _dammit_ , man, go for the leg!”

There is bile at the back of his throat. Solas tries to breathe in deeply and the world dips. “Iron Bull,” he calls, and then he is turning his head, emptying the contents of his stomach. Moments later, a large hand is on his back, helping him roll onto his side. Solas retches as he clutches at his stomach, his lone supporting arm shaking under the strain.

Footsteps echo at the mouth of the cave, stealing his attention before he can answer. Solas looks up to see the rest of the party. The Warden staggers in after the Inquisitor, supporting half the da’len’s weight despite walking with a heavy limp. The da’len’s ankle is twisted, and rather than quiet her, the pain only seems to exacerbate her profanity. Cole follows them, carrying Solas’s discarded bag.

The Inquisitor drops to Solas’s side, rolling him onto his back, her shaking hands pushing away his own so she can look at his wound. Her breaths come in short, shallow pants, almost to the verge of hyperventilating. Sweat trickles down the hollow of her throat.

“You’re not bleeding anymore. Good,” she says, forcing a strained smile, “but there’s still risk of infection. I can’t treat you, not after Sera passed out. I had to revive her. I don’t have any mana left, I’m sorry. We have to go to the Keep. I’m going to—”

A voice at the cave’s mouth interrupts her. “Dear Inquisitor, that was _magnificent!_ ”

They all look to see the Orlesian researcher standing in at the end of the cave, his figure a silhouette against the sky. “I saw the entire thing,” he gushes. The Inquisitor’s expression shutters. “How thrilling! I did not expect to observe her fighting an enemy, but—”

The Inquisitor stands. “You son of a _bitch!_ ”

Behind his mask, the Orlesian blinks. “I—excuse me?”

The Inquisitor rushes him, fisting his red velvet tunic in her hands and shoving him against the wall. “We fought a fucking dragon and you just stood there and _watched_? You didn’t think of getting help? Three of my teammates, my _friends_ , almost _died_ because you did nothing!”

“Hey, boss—”

The Orlesian sputters, eyes wide in the hollows of his mask. “You do not understand, Inquisitor! I am a scholar first and foremost, and none have ever studied the Abyssal—”

“I don’t _care!_ ”

The Qunari puts a hand on her shoulder, and she releases the researcher with a heavy breath. Her hands shake. “Go to the nearest Inquisition camp, and tell them to inform Griffon Wing Keep that we have several critically wounded. Bring medics back with you. _Go!_ ”

The Orlesian flees, and the Inquisitor falls to her knees, cradling her head, dragging in ragged gasps by the mouthful. “Shit,” she whispers, sucking in another breath. “Shit. Okay. Time to move.”

She turns toward Solas, hands already glowing with healing magic, but her hand trembles. Solas catches her wrist, and the Qunari rests a heavy gray hand on her shoulder. “Boss, sit down for a minute before you collapse,” the warrior grumbles.

“I can’t,” she whispers, looking up at him with wide eyes. A twinge of white-hot pain spikes through him, and Solas looks at the ceiling, biting back a groan and releasing her hand. Out of the corner of his eye, the Inquisitor buries her face in her hands again, grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes. “Oh, Maker, you all almost died because of me.”

“Wot?” the da’len asks. “Are you daft? It was the dragon—”

“Sera,” the Qunari rumbles, shooting her a dark look. He squeezes the Inquisitor’s shoulder. “Nah, boss, as far as I’m concerned, you kept us all alive. You think I didn’t see you with that corrupting rune? That was _great!_ ”

“I can’t,” the Inquisitor whispers again, shuddering. Her breath hitches. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“Hey, hey, hey. Come with me, boss,” the Qunari says. He urges her to her feet, and Cole joins their side, a silent shadow. The warrior sees him and shakes his head. “Not you, kid. Just me and the boss.”

“But—” Cole protests, but then goes silent.

“Help Blackwall tape up Solas,” the Qunari instructs, then walks out, the Inquisitor at his side.

After a brief moment of silence, Cole sits by Solas, pulling a wrap of bandages doused in elfroot potion. The da’len hobbles to the mouth of the cave and sits across from Solas, squinting her eyes as she stares into the sun. “And here I thought she  _liked_ being the Inquisitor,” the girl mutters. “Only a matter of time before she snapped, yeah? She doesn’t—”

“Shut up, Sera,” Solas grits out. His breaths are wet and he’s started bleeding again. He still can’t move his fingers. Behind him, he can hear the Warden unbuckling his armor.

“Wot?” the girl asks, frowning at him. “She doesn’t seem so prissy, now, is all.”

Solas clenches his jaw, and beside him, Cole taps his foot. “Frightened, foolish, _Andraste’s grace, why did I let him do that—I have to do better. I have to._ The Iron Bull is telling her the truth, but she doesn’t believe him. Maybe I could make her forget the fear. It might help.”

Solas grips the spirit’s wrist as the Warden settles beside him, taking a roll of bandages from the broken pack. “Don’t, Cole,” Solas says. The Warden mumbles some apology, noting how the tunic is ruined, and begins to cut it away with one of the girl’s knives.

“No,” Cole agrees. “She wouldn’t want me to.” His face darkens. “It’s what the Nightmare would do, and I am not that.”

“No, you are not,” Solas says, hissing as the Warden wraps bandages over his torso. The elfroot stings, but the additional healing mist the da’len activates eases the pain, somewhat. He can breathe easier, at least, and the combined strength of the mist and the elfroot weighs down his eyelids.

He sleeps. The Nightmare does not trouble his dreams. Odd, but welcome.

 

 

 

When he wakes, he is in Griffon Wing Keep’s infirmary, and the Inquisitor is rubbing aloe vera on her face, peering at herself through a looking glass. “I fought a desert dragon and all I got was this really bad sunburn,” she mutters to her reflection. “Maybe I’ll have freckles at the end of it.” A brief pause, and a quiet laugh. “Don’t get your hopes up, Trevelyan.”

“Inquisitor,” he rasps, and she turns around. He tries to sit up, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and she is at his side in a moment, pushing him back down onto the bed. She hushes him, smiling, but her eyes betray her exhaustion. Solas speaks quietly. “When was the last time you slept?”

“I’m fine,” she insists, swallowing hard and sitting on the bed. “We’re going to Skyhold soon, once you can properly ride a horse. It’ll be a long journey, but I personally can’t wait for the cold. I’ve had enough heat for a lifetime.”

Solas smiles at her. “I cannot blame you, considering the circumstances,” he says. In the moment of silence that follows, she sighs, her whole body slumping with it. She rubs her neck, tilting her head back to stare at the keep’s ceiling.

“I don’t suppose you’d want to go back to sleep, would you?” she asks, shooting him a wry smile. When he nods, her smile turns genuine, and she sits up, searching for a portable object. But before she can get up to drag a chair to his bedside, Solas clears his throat, moving to the side.

“There is ample room here, Inquisitor.”

She looks at him, uncertainty writ across her face. “Um—are you sure?”

“Quite,” he says. She needs no further encouragement. She takes a moment to unravel her braid, and then settles beside him, her arm pressing against his. Her hands fold over her stomach, her eyes flutter closed, and her breathing slows. Solas watches her for a long moment, then closes his eyes as well.

He falls asleep not long after, and finds her in the same beach-house as the last dream. She is brighter than usual in this dream, the Anchor’s magic alerting all the Fade’s inhabitants of her dreaming mind. Solas strengthens the wards, and they flex back, warning him of a spirit’s presence within the dream.

He probes the dream for any sign of a demon, but there is no malevolence tainting the cottage, only curiosity, and determination. The Inquisitor does not seem to notice the anomaly; she calls out for her sister, but seems resigned to the fact that she is not likely to make another appearance. So instead Solas accompanies her as she explores the house. There is another study, with an empty sketchbook and rubs of charcoal alongside a chessboard. Every room is fully furnished—save one large room, with white plastered walls. Its only furnishings are the jars of paint and brushes at the other end of the room.

“Oh, you can paint in here,” she says, smiling. He agrees, bemused, and sends out another pulse of magic. The spirit still remains, but he cannot fathom why it has remained hidden for so long.

The garden, however, is clearly the best feature of the house. Full of blooming, vibrant flower bushes, a cushioned swing is pressed against the side of the cabin, shaded by trellises of ivy. The Inquisitor kneels before a hyacinth bloom, closing her eyes as she breathes the scent of it in.

A warmth washes over Solas, and he turns, stiffening when he sees the figure in the doorway. “Inquisitor, we have a guest,” he says. When she sees their visitor, she gets to her feet, joining his side in a few short strides. Solas steps in front of her, lifting his chin. “Greetings, friend. What brings you to our dream?”

“She is so bright,” says the sister.

It is her form, but she is different. Her monolid eyes are pure gold, lacking both the whites and the pupils, and her hair is braided at the top of her head like a warrior’s. She wears white heavy armor, and carries two thin swords at her sides. A cape of cloth-of-gold brushes against her armored ankles.

The spirit rests a hand atop her sword and looks at the Inquisitor. “I could not help but watch you from this side. I do not frequent the wastelands often, but your light drew me near. We call you Veilmender, here in the dreaming world.”

“I—what?”

The spirit smiles, a faint curve at the corner of her mouth. The gesture echoes the Inquisitor’s so much that a weight closes around his heart. Behind him, the Inquisitor steps forward, her brow furrowed. “What are you?” asks the Inquisitor. “Why do you look like my sister? And—Veilmender? What is Veilmender?”

“It is what you are,” the spirit insists. “We have witnessed our brethren go unwilling into the waking world, and we have seen them become twisted beyond what they were meant to be. The more rifts you seal, the more of us you save. We are grateful for it. As for this form, it serves my purposes well, and it comforts you, somewhat.”

The Inquisitor swallows. “And your identity?”

The spirit looks to Solas, who folds his hands behind his back. He addresses the Inquisitor, but keeps his gaze on the spirit. “I have not seen its like for… a very long while, so I cannot be certain. But I believe that this is a spirit of Courage.”

“Just so,” agrees Courage. An ocean breeze rustles her cape. “I wish to help defend your sanctuary from the Nightmare. And I wish to help you defeat the Magister Corypheus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvhen:  
> Ar dirthan’as ir elgara, ma’sula e’var vhenan? - Can you not feel the soul of our people's language in your heart?
> 
> Fenedhis lasa - Go suck a wolf cock


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM NEARLY DONE WITH SCHOOL. Wooooo!
> 
> Also, I know I am not the best at replying to comments, but I want you guys to know that I read each and every one, and they all mean the WORLD to me. Your guys' support keeps me inspired, so thank you! :)

The ocean is calm, and the clouds are parted to reveal clear blue skies. Solas stands on the cliffside, regarding the still waters which moments before had churned with the force of the Nightmare’s rage. Solas extends his wards, probing the atmosphere of the surrounding Fade, but he can only detect traces of the Nightmare. Courage’s lending of its power to his wards had strengthened them substantially.

And its appearance, too, had been quite… fortuitous.

As if summoned by his thoughts, he feels the spirit’s presence behind him. Solas turns his head, just slightly, regarding the scarlet light splitting through the cracks out of the corner of his vision. He faces the spirit in full, and the red vanishes, fully concealed with the spirit’s original golden aura. Courage has its hands on its swords, and is staring at him, silent.

Solas is the first to speak. “Your assistance in this matter is appreciated, friend,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back and staring at the spirit. “Though I fear I have misgivings.”

Courage tilts its head, its braid slipping from its place on the spirit’s shoulder. “Do you doubt me?” it asks. “I am more than capable of training the Inquisitor to better handle her magics, I assure you.”

“It is not that which worries me.” The Inquisitor, he knew, was pacing in the house, rolling a garden stone between her fingers, musing over Courage’s offer. “No, I wonder at your origins, at the truth of your nature.”

Courage stares. “I do not understand your meaning.”

Solas turns his head. Red light bleeds at the corner of his eye. When he blinks, the spirit’s aura abruptly returns to gold. Solas looks back at it, narrowing his eyes.

“Ah,” says Courage, straightening its back. Its hands tighten on the hilts of its swords.

“I do not think you a demon,” Solas says, “but I am concerned. Perhaps you could put such doubts to rest.” He stops, waiting, but Courage only stares at him, its golden aura wavering for a split second before it seems to solidify. Solas brushes past it, heading back to the cottage. Courage follows, silent, and Solas flexes his hands. “Very well. Your power may be strong enough to combat the Nightmare’s threat alone, but I will remain by the Inquisitor’s side. Whatever your goals are, if they include harming her—”

“She has nothing to fear from me,” the spirit says. Solas stops at the door, his hand resting on the knob. He looks at the spirit and gives it a tight smile.

“Still. Surely you understand my concerns.”

The spirit stares at him. “Just so,” it allows, and enters the cottage without a word, slipping through the walls. Solas follows it, clasping his hands behind his back when he sees the Inquisitor pacing the kitchen, rubbing a garden stone between her fingers. She stills when they enter, her brow furrowing.

“Where did you go?”

“We spoke,” says Courage. “He thought it was best to leave you to your thoughts. Have you come to a decision?”

She accepts it, after a moment, then rounds the wooden counters and leans against them. She ponders the stone in her hand for several long moments, and then looks at Solas. “Do you trust her?” she asks.

“I trust its sincerity,” Solas says.

She swallows, looks at the spirit with her sister’s face. “All right. Okay. I’ll train with you.”

Courage smiles. “Excellent.”

 

 

 

He wakes while the Inquisitor still sleeps, and cannot stop his wince of pain. His entire torso still aches from the dragon’s claws, and nausea sits uneasily in the pit of his stomach. He swallows, but his throat is dry and he can barely wet his lips. He turns his head, to look at the Inquisitor, and his nose brushes against her hairline. She’s still asleep, body tucked against his side, and in a split second Solas remembers their dream.

The warrior in the shape of her sister. The spirit that gleamed gold when faced head-on, but splintered red when he turned his head and watched it from the corner of his eye. The spirit that smiled at him like one would a spoiled child, and always kept its swords close.

 _Courage_. If that was, in fact, its name.

Spirits of Valor were more common, and obsessed with proving themselves. Courage was of the quieter stock, content to stand and watch, and only intervene when needed. It had been so long since he had seen a _true_ spirit of Courage—he closes his eyes, dredging up memories several millennia old, and yet cannot quite recall the last time he had seen one.

Perhaps one of Mythal’s wartime advisors, before it had been murdered at the hands of the Outcast. He cannot remember if it had taken a body or not, only remembers that they had grieved its loss for months afterward.

They will need to discuss its offer, at some point. The last thing Solas remembers from his dream is Courage looking at the Inquisitor and declaring that it would return with gifts; it had given no specifics, and soon after Solas had been pulled from the Fade.

He drags in a long, slow breath, ignoring the pain in his ribs; he exhales when he smells her citrus perfume under the stronger stench of sweat and blood. When he stretches his fingers, pain reverberates to his wrist. He is not prepared to withdraw fully from the Fade, so instead he turns his head toward her and lets his heavy eyelids fall shut as he surrenders to dreaming once more.

His sleep is dark and quiet, and dreamless. When he next opens his eyes, he sees Cassandra standing at the infirmary’s doorway from the corner of his eye. He turns from the Inquisitor, blinking sleep from his eyes, and looks at her. The warrior’s slight smile drops when their gazes meet, and she clears her throat. She tilts her head and crosses the room, picking up a chair and bringing it to his bedside.

“Seeker,” he greets, carefully, keeping his voice low. Their conversation will certainly wake the Inquisitor, but for now, she should sleep as long as possible. She needs the rest.

“Cole told us what happened,” Cassandra informs him, quietly. “He told us… she did not handle it well, I take it.”

“It was in the aftermath,” Solas admits. Something in the warrior’s gaze makes him wonder what Cole had revealed.  “I believe the reality of the situation caught up with her unexpectedly. Yet we are all of us alive and she is the one to thank for that.”

Cassandra arches an eyebrow. “Is she?”

The Inquisitor’s fingers flex against his chest, but otherwise she does not move. Her even, deep breathing does not so much as stutter. Solas looks at her for one long, quiet moment, then says, “When the dragon caught me, she was the one who distracted the beast and drew her away from me, allowing myself and Bull to escape. She significantly injured the dragon with a raw corrupting rune. She was the one who kept the others alive while Bull brought me to a cave.”

“I see,” Cassandra says, turning her attention upon the Inquisitor. She smiles, small and fond. “She is brave.”

“Recklessly so,” he agrees. Cassandra laughs, but does not disagree. Her gaze darts between them and she clears her throat, focusing once more on Solas.

“Dorian and I returned with a wagon for the wounded. Whenever the Inquisitor’s party is ready, we may return to Skyhold.”

The Inquisitor stirs. She hums, stretching out her arms, and settles back at Solas’s side. Then, after a moment, her eyes open and she sits straight up. “Shit,” she says. “ _Shit_.” She looks at Solas. “They haven’t taken the dragon remains to Skyhold yet, have they?”

“I do not know, Inquisitor,” he says. She curses once more, then jumps off the bed. She hadn’t taken off her boots.

“I’ll be right back, Cass!” she calls, sprinting out of the room. Cassandra turns around in the chair to stare after the Inquisitor, who had left the infirmary door ajar in her haste. Solas sits up, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and sends a wash of healing magic through his torso. After a moment, he can breathe easier, and his body does not protest when he tries to move.

The Inquisitor is back within five minutes, breathing heavily. “Got it,” she announces, sucking in a deep breath. “And Bull didn’t even see me. _That’s_ how you properly use concealing barriers, people. Cass, can you hold this for me?”

She tosses something to Cassandra, who catches it neatly. The Inquisitor walks to the nearest empty bed and collapses on it face-first. Cassandra opens her fist and Solas sees a long, elegantly curved tooth in her palm. The warrior blinks, turning it in her hands. “What is this for, Inquisitor?”

The Inquisitor mumbles into the pillow; Solas can only make out “Dorian.”

After a moment, the Inquisitor turns onto her side, propping her head on her arm. Her eyes close, and in the morning desert light Solas can see faint purple shadows under her eyes. “When can we go back to Skyhold?”

“Now, if you prefer,” Cassandra says.

At that, the Inquisitor opens her eyes and sits up. “Well. What are we waiting for?”

 

 

 

It takes several days to reach Skyhold, but it is a welcome respite. The Inquisitor’s advisors sweep her away for a debriefing, most of the Inner Circle leaves for the tavern, and Solas finds himself in his quarters. He does not consider Skyhold _home_ , not by any meaning of the word, yet the relief he feels once he is in the privacy of his own rooms catches him off-guard.

The volume of Elvhen poetry is on the bedside table, where he had left it. His traveling packs are atop the trunk at the foot of the bed. Solas forgoes unpacking to lounge across the bed, tucking his hands underneath his armpits. He closes his eyes, but the bustle of the Inquisition outside proves too much of a distraction. Solas opens his eyes and takes the poetry book from the end table, sitting up to get more comfortable.

The Inquisitor’s ribbon, tucked between the pages, had once marked a recommendation. He uses it as a bookmark, now, as he reads through the scraps of Elvhen that remain. Solas winds the silk around his knuckles and reads three extra pages before he stills.

 _At evenfall a maiden_  
_kissed me with humid lips;_  
_nectar, her kisses, and her mouth_  
_redolent of nectar._  
_Lo, now I stagger,_  
_drunken with her kiss_  
_from which I quaffed_ _  
draught upon draught of love._

Solas looks up at the ceiling, and rubs the silver ribbon between his forefinger and thumb. It had been in her hair, once, he knows; he can still smell the faint traces of citrus clinging to the fabric. He winds the ribbon between his fingers, drawing it tight across his knuckles. When he closes his eyes, a kiss ghosts across his lips.

He mouths her name, wondering what it would be like: to say it aloud, to breathe it against her skin, to revel in the strange syllables that belong to a coarse language but sound like a melody nonetheless.

“Fool,” he scolds himself, brow furrowing.

But—to kiss her again…

Selfish, he knows, and yet he longs for it with a desperation that shames him.

The bed dips, the only warning he gets before odorless green smoke curls away from Cole. Solas crushes the ribbon in his palm as he closes his hand, and erects walls around his mind, shielding himself from the spirit’s ever-growing tendency to hook deep and _pull._

“Hello, Solas,” Cole says. Solas turns, and sees the spirit perched on his bed, his knees bent and legs crossed at the ankles, peering at the book in his hands. Cole leans forward, face hidden underneath the brim of his hat. “You should give it to her. She’d like it.” He gives a little laugh. “If you want to kiss her again, you should—”

“She is a friend, Cole,” Solas interrupts. The spirit hums, tilting his head, and Solas strengthens his mental barriers. “She has treated me with more kindness than expected, or deserved. It is nothing more than a passing fancy, at most. Sharing the poem with her would likely damage our working relationship.”

“A mouth like mint, kind, caring, courageous. You think she shouldn’t risk herself and she thinks it’s the only way to prove her worth.”

Solas stills. “I do not think the Inquisitor would appreciate you telling me this, Cole,” he warns. “Some things are not meant to be shared without permission.”

“You’re right, I think. I told her Julianna would want her to smile and she cried instead. I didn’t say it right. I wanted to take the hurt away and try again, but she wouldn’t let me. She said—” his voice takes on her cadence, and Solas shivers, “— _Cole, if we forget our mistakes, we won't ever learn from them._ ”

Solas laughs, helplessly. He cannot help it. “Wise words, indeed, Cole.” The spirit is quiet, bouncing his legs on the bed. Solas tucks the ribbon between his fingertips and turns toward him. “What troubles you, my friend?”

“Will you bind me?” The spirit’s clouded eyes are wide, guileless, and Solas feels his stomach hollow.

For a moment, he cannot find his voice. Then—“Excuse me?”

“Bind me, so I can’t become like the demons at Adamant, blinded, betrayed, broken. If I’m bound, I can’t hurt people.”

Solas stands up, shaking his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I would not betray your trust in such a way, Cole,” Solas says. He bookmarks his place, with an idle mental note to find a different poem for the Inquisitor later, and sets the volume on the bedside table. “Forgive me, but I have work to do.”

“You won’t help?” Cole asks, incredulous.

“The solution you propose is hardly _help_ ,” Solas retorts, striding out into the hall and down the stairs. His response seems to stun Cole for several long moments, for though the spirit follows him, he seems at a loss for words. He follows Solas through the Great Hall in stunned silence, and only seems to find his voice once they are in the rotunda.

“But you _like_ demons!” Cole calls, racing after him when the distance between them grows too far. Solas can hear the spirit’s footsteps for the first time in—he cannot remember _ever_ hearing the spirit make a sound when moving.

“I enjoy the company of _spirits_ , yes, which is why I do not abuse them with bindings,” Solas corrects, biting back a far more caustic response. The spirit means well, and he must remember that; the intent behind Cole’s question is well-meaning, at least, but intentions never accomplish what they should.

“It isn’t abuse if I ask,” Cole insists. His voice echoes through the tower, and Solas looks up to see Dorian’s head disappear over the railing.

Solas shakes his head, reaching for a tome on his desk. His fingers skirt over the cover but do not open the book. For a spirit of Compassion, preciously rare enough, to deliberate its own potential _corruption_ —“Not always true, Cole. Also, I do not practice blood magic, which renders this entire conversation academic!”

Footsteps echo from the library staircase, and Cole pauses, looking up and hope flashing across his face. Solas follows his gaze and swallows as the Inquisitor emerges from the stairwell. She leans against the archway, wariness writ across her face as she stares at Cole. “Is something up?” she asks, gaze shifting to Solas and softening somewhat.

“He won’t bind me,” Cole says, rounding the desk and striding toward her. She flinches away, a brief flicker of fear flashing in her eyes before her expression smoothes over. Cole stops short and takes a step back, his fingers twitching. “He’s a mage, and he likes demons, but he won’t help!”

“Why would you want Solas to bind you?”

“So I’m _safe!_ ” He whirls away, pacing. “If Solas won’t do the ritual to bind me, someone else could—will! Like the Warden mages. And then—I’m not me anymore. Walls around what I want, blocking, bleeding, making me a monster.”

“What if it backfires?” she asks, concern flickering over her features.

“Yes. What should happen, Cole, if the binding should erase your mind? Your consciousness?”

“Helping makes me who I am,” he insists. “I help the hurting. That is what I do, all I do, _am_ , me!” He turns to the Inquisitor. “ _You_ wouldn’t make me hurt innocent people. I don’t want to hurt innocent people again.”

The Inquisitor looks away, taking a breath. “There has to be some kind of middle ground between ‘do nothing’ and ‘use blood magic to bind you.’” Her words are punctuated by a Tevinter-accented snort from above.

“Indeed,” Solas says, seizing on this opportunity. “I recall stories of amulets used by Rivani seers, to protect spirits they summoned from rival mages. A spirit wearing the amulet of the unbound was immune to blood magic and binding. It should protect Cole as well. The resources of the Inquisition could be used to find such a talisman.”

Truly, the artifact he has in mind had been one of June and Ghilan’nain’s creations, commissioned at behest of Mythal; it was intended for a spirit who had not yet taken on a form of flesh, but wished to participate in the war against the Outcast— _Forgotten Ones_ , he corrects himself. _That is what the Dalish call them nowadays._ And the fact that Rivani seers had discovered the elvhen antiquities and adapted them for their own purposes within this Veiled world—well. Provided the Rivani had not entirely perverted the purposes of what amulets remained, Cole should still be safe.

“Yes,” Cole says. “Thank you. They will not take me.” He turns to the Inquisitor, and withdraws a small stone from his patchwork sleeve. He holds out a hand, waiting for her to take his gift. “Your old one fell from your pack on the road. If I’d known then, I would’ve gotten it for you. I hope this one works too, even though it’s not the one she gave you.”

The Inquisitor’s mouth opens, just slightly, then closes. She swallows as she takes the stone from Cole.

A _crack_ , and the spirit disappears in a cloud of green, leaving them alone with Dorian’s eavesdropping. The Inquisitor stares at the smooth dark stone, round and small enough to roll between her fingers. Her thumb brushes over its surface, and her expression softens as she stares at it. Her gaze goes distant, her thoughts elsewhere. “He really does mean well, doesn’t he?”

“Indeed,” Solas says, clasping his hands behind his back. “He is a spirit of Compassion, innately driven to help those in need.” After a pause, he casts a silencing barrier, crossing to his desk and rifling through the papers until he finds the report he seeks. “And speaking of spirits, I believe we should discuss the matter of Courage.”

“What is there to discuss?” she asks, curling her fingers around the stone and crossing her arms. “I would have thought you would approve, considering how a few months ago I would have run away from her, screaming.”

Solas manages a half-smile at that. She shifts her weight, gaze darting to the murals before returning to him. “Why’re you worried? She’s Courage. That’s one of the good ones, right?”

“In theory, I suppose,” Solas cautions. “Yet we do not know _this_ particular spirit, nor its motivations in seeking you out. Be wary, Inquisitor.”

She looks at him for a long moment. Then she nods, lowering her gaze. “All right. I’ll be careful.”

She leaves, then, off to make her rounds. Solas rolls up his sleeves and sits, opening a book on Avvar relationships with spirits.

His peace is broken when, hours later, one of the Spymaster’s attendants—a young elf woman he has yet to approach—rushes into the rooms. She clutches a stack of missives to her chest, eyes wide. “Nightingale!” she calls, voice echoing up the rafters and startling the ravens. “Nightingale!”

The Spymaster looks over the railing, one of his people at her side. The redhead does not ask for clarification, only disappears once more, and the runner sprints toward the staircase. Solas bookmarks his page and looks up, furrowing his brow. The elf who had stood beside the Spymaster meets his gaze, and gives a small tilt of his head before following. Solas looks back down at his book, reassured.

He will find out what has happened soon enough.

Several minutes passed in hushed whispers, and then he hears the Spymaster say, “Talia, get the Inquisitor and Cassandra. I saw them outside sparring with Bull. Seth, get Josie and Cullen. They should be in their offices. Tell them it’s an emergency meeting and that I’ll meet them in the War Room.”

The attendants leave to gather the Council. The hushed whispers above him only pique his interest. The Spymaster soon follows, her lips pursed and several slips of parchment clasped to her chest. He lingers in the rotunda until it is near sunset, alternating between research, mixing paints, and filling in the murals.

At last he retires to his room, and smiles when he sees a basket of herbs on his desk. A note in the herbalist’s handwriting is attached to the handle. _For your headaches, serah._ Underneath the carefully wrapped herbs are slips of parchment, written in shaky Elvhen. Locations of power sources, spotted throughout Thedas, with a note that more are yet to come.

He tucks the list away and turns, stiffening when he sees that the book of Elvhen poetry is no longer on his bedside table. He had left it there, and the herbalist would not have moved his personal items.

“Cole,” he says, low and soft.

As if he had been waiting, green smoke unfurls on his bed, and Cole is there, his foot tapping against the stone floor. Solas cannot see his clouded eyes under the brim of his hat. “What did you do with the book, Cole?”

Cole says, “I told her you thought of her.”

Solas pinches the bridge of his nose. “Cole, listen to me. I recall that I specifically expressed a desire to keep this poem to myself. Your efforts to help can only go so far. Once they breach one’s privacy, it is more apt to harm than aid. Do you understand?”

“She needed to remember,” Cole says. “She needed to remember the small things.”

“Has she read the poem yet?”

Cole tilts his head. “I don’t know.”

“Is it in her room?”

“Yes.”

Solas takes another deep breath. “We will discuss this later,” he says. “For now, please do not move my things again.”

He does not give Cole time to reply. He pushes away from the desk and leaves the room, closing and locking the door behind him. Once it is secure, he turns on his heel and heads for the Inquisitor’s room. With any luck, she will still be in the meeting with her advisors.

He will take the book, and he will refute her advances, once and for all. They will return to being temporary colleagues, and he will resume his mission unhindered by foolish whims.

It takes several minutes to reach the Inquisitor’s personal suite, and thankfully the door is unlocked. She is not in her room, either. The balcony doors are open, and golden-red sunlight streams across the floor. Her bed is a sturdy canopy, its bedspread a delicately patterned cream and white. Sheer golden fabric is tied to each post with silk rope.

And on one of her pillows is the volume of Elvhen poetry, bound in red leather and golden text. Her silver ribbon peeks from one of its pages, as does a parchment slip. Solas takes the book and walks to the balcony, thumbing through the pages until he reaches the poem. There is a note, tucked between the pages, and it reads:  _He read this and thought of you. Don’t forget the world can be small, too._

Solas takes the note, and tucks it into his sleeve, rolling them back until his forearms are left bare, leaving no chance that Cole’s note may slip out accidentally. He keeps the ribbon where it is, delicately turning the pages in search of another poem that will suit his needs.

The doors are open, and the wind is a mere breeze, gentle but chilling him to the bone all the same. As he is searching, the door behind him opens and shuts. Moments later, her boots thud on the stone steps. He tenses, heart beginning to race.

 _Calm_ , he thinks, and shuts the book, resting it on her desk. Too late, he realizes he had never moved the ribbon.

She wears a heavy cloak and riding gloves, and snowflakes dust her long, unbound black hair. Her mouth is pressed into a thin line and her gaze is downcast, but when she sees him, her face lights up with her smile. “Solas!” she calls in greeting, with another laugh that nearly disarms him. She sees his expression and her smile falls. “Is something wrong?”

For a moment, he wavers, thinking of a good excuse.

“I asked for time, as you recall,” he says, looking away from her. His heart is pounding. “And I believe the time has come for my decision.”

She is silent. He looks at her. She is pulling her gloves off, eyes lingering on his face. She is but an arm’s length away. He could reach for her, and his fingers would graze her cloak.

Solas almost steps forward, almost gets pulled in by the sheer force of her, but at the last second he looks away. He is here to disentangle himself from her once and for all, not get drawn further in. The words are on his tongue, and once he swallows he has the strength to speak them. “I,” he says, and stops. The rest of his reluctance is left unsaid.

Damn him. Damn him, but he cannot keep himself from this, from her.

She steps forward, eyes brown in the twilight, and stops directly across from him. After a long moment, she moves closer, slowly, giving him time to move away.

He does not.

Solas inhales, dragging citrus into his lungs. He cannot look away from the freckles under her eye. When he does manage to tear his gaze from the twin marks, he looks, instead, at the pink bow of her lips. She tilts her head up, angling her shoulders toward his, her gaze flickering to his mouth before meeting his eyes once again.

It is a subtle, silent request, a _May I?_ breathed across the miniscule space between them.

Solas—hesitates.

He knows that he is free to turn away, to sever this strange connection, but his fool heart is _pounding,_  so hard he is almost dizzy with the combination of its force and her perfume. He looks at her, and a kiss tasting of mint brushes against his mouth, a fragile ghost of a memory.

_May I?_

He inhales again, leans toward her, and thinks, _Please._

Her hand cups his cheek, her thumb brushing against his lower lip. The smallest of touches, and yet it sends heated shivers down his spine. Solas’s eyes squeeze shut, and his hands fist at his sides. He should stop her. He should spare them both what pain lies down this path.

And yet—and yet.

She sees his hesitation. She must, for she pulls away. His cheek burns where she’d touched it. “Solas, if you don’t want this—”

Solas opens his eyes, and utters a curse so low it stops her short.

He sinks his hands into her hair and slants his mouth over hers, swallowing her gasp. He cradles the back of her head, tilting it back, deepening the kiss. Her hands fist in his tunic, her soft sigh tickling the roof of his mouth.

For a moment, he wonders if he is dreaming. Reality is sharper than the Fade, darker, colder—he had thought he’d been awake, before the kiss, but is _this_ what true reality is? The clutch of her hands in his shirt, the hair between his fingers, the give of her lips under his? He winds his left hand around her back to pull her closer, and groans when another moan escapes her.

There is nothing sharp about her. Yet she is solid under his touch, and the wind from the mountain cuts to his bones. He—he cannot possibly be dreaming, not when his kisses draw the sweetest whimpers from her, not when she breathes his name while he drags his mouth over her jaw, not when her warmth _burns_ through the empty chasms of his body, filling the gaps between muscle and bone with _her_. And underneath it all, his heart hammers under his ribs, so hard and so fast he feels faint.

She shivers, despite the heavy cloak hanging from her shoulders, and he groans as his hands skim down her back and settle over the curve of her ass. Her left arm winds around him, fingers curling in the space between his shoulderblades, nails digging into his sweater. She pulls away, only to gasp out, “Close the doors.” He obeys with a gesture, and without a second thought, cups her jaw and kisses her, drinking her deep.

His hand skirts down her neck to fumble with the cloak toggles at the hollow of her throat, then stills as he realizes what he is doing. He places his free hand on her hip instead, slowing their kisses, ignoring the ache that weighs upon him. Eventually he pulls away, and she sighs. He looks at her, taking in the flutter of her eyelids, the pink flush of her cheeks, the part of her reddened lips.

For an instant, his world is small. For an instant, his world is this.

“Don’t.” Her hands tighten in his shirt. Her eyes are still closed. “Stop thinking.”

Solas laughs, looking askance, though he does not have the strength to step away from her. “You know me so well, then?”

“I know that you’re afraid to let people in,” she breathes, and her words knock the wind from him. “I don’t know why. But I know that you have built walls around yourself, and you run away when things catch you by surprise. You run so you can escape, so you can _think_. Which is fine. But Solas—”

She catches his cheek with her palm, her gentle touch holding him still as she moves to look him in the eye. She leans forward, then draws back at the last moment, hesitation shining in her eyes, so open and vulnerable.

“You don’t have to run anymore,” she whispers, so _wretchedly_ heartfelt. His heart flips, his mouth goes dry.

“It has been so long since I could trust someone,” he confesses with a rasp, and her eyes widen.

“I figured,” she says after a long moment. Her thumb strokes his cheekbone, gentle, tentative, devastating. Solas lowers his forehead to hers. One of her hands is against his cheek, and the other is wrapped around him, fingers fanned over the small of his back. His body hums with her warmth, with the closeness of her—he’s dizzy from her proximity, almost drunk on the taste of her kiss.

Her thumb strokes small circles into his back. Such a simple touch, and yet it still robs him of any coherent thought, save those of pressing his lips to her temple so he can inhale her scent again. Citrus stings his nostrils, burrows into his lungs; he has never smelled anything so sweet.

Her fingers curl into his sweater, holding him tighter. He can’t help but pull her closer, try to encourage her to _touch_ him, though he can already feel every line of her body against his. He drops his forehead to her shoulder, and she brushes kisses over his temple and face, her hands smoothing down his back. He shudders at the gentleness of her touch, knowing he does not deserve it.

If she knew what he had done…

It would be worse, he knows, if she were one of the People.

But at least this way—this way, she may not hate him. Her humanity is a blessing and a curse.

When she moves to pull away, Solas’s fingers tighten unconsciously for a heartbeat. But then he releases her, stepping away, cold without her warmth. She remains within reach, studying him with unreadable eyes. He meets her gaze, anxiety trembling through his chest.

“Solas,” she whispers. When her fingers feather across his jaw, he is helpless to stop himself from turning into her touch. The next moment, he forces himself away, forces himself to look at her once again. She steps closer. A part of him insists he should push her away—it is not irrecoverable, what he has done, but if he is to keep this uncomplicated, he must uproot this seedling before it truly takes hold.

Her thumb brushes against the underside of his cheekbone, again, and Solas closes his eyes with a quiet exhale, leaning into her warmth. She whispers his name again, then says, “What is my name, Solas?”

He opens his eyes, stilling at the unexpected question. Her gaze is steady, unreadable, and she blinks at him, expecting an answer.

To anyone else, this would be a simple matter. The syllables have long been tucked under his tongue; it would be a simple thing to say them. But to _acknowledge_ them, acknowledge their meaning, acknowledge _her_ meaning… it is different.

She has been so many things to him.

Human, then friend. Herald, then Inquisitor. Shadow, then—

“Adelaide,” he whispers.

_Real._

Her name hangs in the hair’s breadth of space between them. He says it again, the sound of her name on his tongue wrapped in honeyed syllables. And as her lips curve into a smile and her eyes become expressive once more, Solas cannot help himself from sinking one hand into her hair and leaning forward, stopping just short of a kiss.

“Adelaide,” he whispers again, and she shivers.

Their mouths are a breath away. All he must do is lean in and _taste_. His hand tightens in her hair, and he carefully, _carefully,_ brushes a kiss against her lower lip. When she makes a soft, needy sound, offering her mouth to him and letting her eyes fall closed, he realizes:

He is doomed.

Perhaps he has always been.

He wraps an arm around her, all but drags her toward him, slanting his mouth over hers and swallowing her moan. Her hands lift, gripping his forearms, and he tilts his head, threading his fingers through her hair and revelling in the silken tresses that fill his palms. “Adelaide,” he murmurs against her mouth, then moves his attention from the bow of her lips to the curve of her jawline. She tilts her head back, granting him easier access, her fingers curling against his back. The taste of her pulse is enough for his body to stir in response.

“Solas,” she whispers, and the sweet sound of his name on her lips—a breathless little gasp, _Soh-lis,_ oh, he loves her _voice_ —makes him groan against her pulse.

It has been so long, and he is too weak to deny what comfort she offers. He mouths at her neck, resisting the urge to bite down, to show the world what they are; when his lips brush under a spot just under her jaw, she shivers, a quiet, half-breathless _oh_ escaping her. The sound thrills through him, heating his blood and making him ravenous for the simple taste of her kiss.

 _Real_ , he thinks, and kisses her again to mute the skitter of terror that runs through his veins at that thought. _Real_ , he thinks, and if his fingers tighten their hold on her to test her substancy, she doesn’t complain. _Real_ , he thinks, and wonders if she can sense the desperation bleeding between his fingers as he clutches at her.

He isn’t aware that they are moving until her back is against the wall beside the archway, until she’s arching against him and gasping into his mouth. High pitched noises escape her as he mouths at her throat, tasting the springtime chill on her skin. She moans as he presses closer, low in her throat, and the sound thrills through him. Her arms wind around him, fingers curling in the space between his shoulderblades, nails digging into his sweater. She is so warm, and the want that gnaws at him sharpens to from a pressing hunger to a frantic _need._

He charts his way back to the pink of her mouth, but she turns away, and his lips graze her cheek instead. “Okay,” she says, shivering. “Solas, Solas, stop for a second.”

He does, almost pulling away, but the tightening of her arms around him discourages him from much movement. Instead he takes in the sight of her: flushed cheeks, heavy breaths, a half-smile that produces the barest hint of dimples. She takes a moment to catch her breath, then rests her hands on his chest, lifting her gaze to his.

“I—” she starts, but is interrupted by a loud knocking on her door.

“Inquisitor!” a runner shouts, his voice carrying into the main room. “The War Council will be reconvening in half an hour! Do you still want to gather your Inner Circle for the meeting?”

“Yes, please, Jim,” she calls back, though her eyes don’t move from his. “Thank you.”

The runner leaves, and they are left alone again. “Duty calls,” she says, with a small, half-hearted laugh. Solas steps away, lowering his hands to his sides, but she follows him, holding his face and pressing a quick kiss against the curve of his cheekbone. “We’ll talk later. Um. Some things have come up, and I need everyone in the War Room in half an hour. I’ll see you then?”

“Yes,” he says, low and hoarse. He clears his throat and looks at the darkening sky outside. “Yes. Until then, Inquisitor.”

He moves, but she catches his wrist. He looks at her over his shoulder, mouth dry. She offers a small, tentative smile. “Adelaide, please,” she requests.

“Adelaide,” he agrees, softly.

Adelaide lets him go, turning away and tucking her hair behind her curved ear, her cheeks pink and her lips curved into a small, secret smile. Solas retreats, clasping his trembling hands behind his back.

He itches to hold her again.

He is ashamed of it.

Of his cowardice. Of his selfishness. Of how he had forgotten his duties, and allowed himself to think the world was, for a moment, as small as a kiss.

He enters his room and locks the door behind him, sitting on his bed and resting the back of his head against the cool stone wall. It is only then, alone in the silence, that he realizes he had left the book behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> The Kiss, Anonymous


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TOTALLY FORGOT TO SAY: this chapter is dedicated to [Charlie](http://www.eveninglottie.tumblr.com), because she commissioned [this](http://cedarmoons.tumblr.com/post/144059214042/eveningshadowrising-slayersangel-commission) beautiful portrait of Adelaide. thank you so much babe ❤️

Most of the Inner Circle are already in the War Room by the time Solas arrives. Adelaide is hunched over some papers on the War Table, shaking her head as she reads. Cassandra and the Qunari flank her. When he enters, he turns to shut the door quietly behind him, only to see the Commander coming down the hall. The man’s hands, balled at his sides, are shaking, and he looks far too pale to be healthy.

Solas files it away, for later consideration, and takes his place behind Cassandra. When the Commander enters, Adelaide sighs. “Okay, that’s everyone. Cullen, close the door please. Madame Vivienne, if you could be so kind as to soundproof this room.”

“Certainly, darling.” The Enchanter’s gestures are lofty, graceful, as they call forth a silencing barrier. Adelaide waits for the magic to settle into the walls before she speaks.

“What I tell you all today does not leave this room,” she starts, voice low. She looks up, and the moonlight casts half of her face in silver. Solas fists his hands behind his back and looks at the War Table, where three different groups of figurines are scattered across a large map of Thedas. Some are knocked over—purposefully, it seems.

Adelaide swallows and straightens, crossing her arms. “Today we received three different reports, all spaced out over the course of the week,” she says. “Corypheus has… recently we learned that several groups of red Templars, Venatori and mercenaries—strike teams, if you will—have attacked various parts of Thedas. First, the Minanter River has reportedly been poisoned with corpses and red lyrium. The Jennies report that red lyrium has breached the cities of Starkhaven, Tantervale, and Hasmal. Starkhaven and Tantervale are without drinkable water and have requested Inquisition and Chantry aid.”

“Shit,” Varric whispers. “ _Shit_.”

“Second. The Exalted Plains has been a site of extended battle in the Orlesian Civil War for months. One of our people there managed to get a letter to us, before… apparently strike teams have abducted what civilians remained, and taken them east for unknown purposes. They have also reportedly reanimated dead Orlesian soldiers and summoned demons, all to keep the rival armies from banding together against a common enemy. The letter we received stated that the other Inquisition camps had been destroyed by Corypheus’s forces, and that… well. We have no reason to believe there are any survivors.”

“Third, our outposts in the Hinterlands were attacked. The strike team took advantage of our reduced presence in the area by attacking Redcliffe Village. They burnt the watchtowers, salted the lands, and killed anyone who fought back. Those who didn’t manage to get inside the castle in time were also taken, likely to the same place as the civilians in the Exalted Plains. Worse—” she stops, swallowing, and closes her eyes. She shakes her head and doesn’t speak.

The Ambassador clears her throat. “The King of Ferelden, Alistair Theirin, was in the Hinterlands, visiting Teagan and the refugees who still lingered at the Crossroads. He was caught in the crossfire between Ferelden soldiers and Corypheus’s forces. Corporal Vale managed to get him and a few refugees to safety, but they are stuck inside a decrepit castle, and there is not much time left. If the Venatori manage to kill the King…”

The Spymaster cuts in. “King Alistair has no heirs, and Teagan remains a bachelor. If the king dies, it will destabilize Ferelden, and would likely become a temporary seat of power for Corypheus. He could base in Ferelden and establish a foothold elsewhere in Thedas.”

Varric shakes his head. “So what’s the good news, Firefly?” he asks, half joking.

“There is no good news, Varric,” Adelaide replies.

“So what’s the plan, boss?” the Qunari asks, crossing his massive arms.

“Our first priority should be helping the people, and rescuing the King. Other than that, I’m open to suggestions,” Adelaide says, with a little, self-deprecating laugh.

“We split up,” the Qunari suggests. “Kill the birds with one stone. We have outposts in Crestwood and the Fallow Mire—why are our people still in that shithole, by the way?—so let’s use ‘em. Tell ‘em to converge on the Hinterlands and replenish the lost troops. You send a group from Skyhold, too, and if everyone rides fast, they can probably kill the bastards, and save the King and everyone else.”

“And then the soldiers could help Redcliffe rebuild,” the Commander notes, with a faint note of approval. The da’len shifts in the corner of Solas’s eye.

“Indeed. And they could bring the survivors to Skyhold,” the Ambassador suggests, dipping her quill into an inkwell. “If they sought to destabilize Ferelden, perhaps they have also struck at Denerim in hopes of killing the King. King Alistair would be safer within the Inquisition’s walls than traversing Ferelden to return to the capital.”

“Good idea,” Adelaide agrees. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. Varric, you know how to destroy red lyrium safely. You, Dorian, Sera, and Cassandra, as well as Sutherland’s company and the Chargers, will meet up with half of Crestwood’s forces and all of the Fallow Mire’s in the Hinterlands. Cullen, how many soldiers are stationed in Skyhold? How many noncombatants?”

“We currently have two hundred civilians, including servants, merchants, Chantry laysisters, and various dignitaries,” the Ambassador supplies.

“And we have one hundred eighty-six able-bodied soldiers,” the Commander says. “Not including Sutherland’s company, the Chargers, or the Inner Circle. An additional hundred are out on various missions, but they can be recalled within the week.”

She nods. “We don’t know how large these strike teams are, so be careful and be alert. I want an accompaniment of eighty troops with you. Forty soldiers and Sera will remain behind to help with Redcliffe’s rebuilding. The rest will accompany Varric and Dorian to Starkhaven and Tantervale to assist with relief efforts and red lyrium destruction. Cassandra, I want you and Sutherland’s company to escort the King back to Skyhold, if you can. If he wishes to return to Denerim, that’s his choice, but if that is the case I want you to accompany Varric and Dorian to the Free Marches.”

“We would not escort him?” Cassandra asks, her brow furrowing. “What if there are other bands of Venatori roaming the countryside? He would be alone, and near-defenseless.”

Adelaide stills, a corner of her mouth twitching.  Solas folds his hands behind his back and watches in silence. She straightens and leans on the war table, looking at Cassandra. “Do you disagree with my methods, Seeker?” Her tone, inexplicably, reminds him of the Enchanter.

“I disagree with such blatant manipulation,” Cassandra says. “You are a friend, Inquisitor, but if King Alistair wishes to return to Denerim, I cannot in good conscience leave his safety to chance.”

“That’s why you need to convince him to come to Skyhold,” Adelaide replies, evenly. “So you are not abandoning your conscience.”

“Question,” the da’len interrupts, scratching at her head. “The soldiers will be marching through Ferelden to get to Starkhaven, yeah? They can march through Verchiel too, right?”

“Verchiel is miles out of the way,” the Commander says. “If they detour to Verchiel, it would add several days to their journey to the Free Marches.”

The da’len makes a face. “Some of your people can do a little march-around and catch up later, yeah? It’s just a little Red Jenny thing.”

“Red Jenny thing?” Solas repeats, furrowing his brow.

“Friends of Red Jenny. It’s… as far as I know, an organization that does things for the little guys,” Varric supplies. “Servants, mostly, or the poor. People who get screwed over when nobles mess up.”

“Yeah—you didn’t know?” The da’len scrunches her nose at him. “Whatever, not _my_ problem. Anyway, I got a tip that some noble stiffs are arguing over Verchiel. Land squabble. They’re getting the little people beat up, so I just need some of your people to walk through town. Simple, really.”

“Just… walk through town?” Adelaide repeats.

“Just walk through. Easy, right?”

“Who is asking for this?” asks the Spymaster, turning around to face the girl.

“ _I’m_ asking, because I heard people complaining. See, when nobles fight, it’s not them. It’s their little people stuck in the middle. It’s like a polite war, so no one pays attention. But if _you_ march through, then the tits up top feel threatened, too.”

It is the most serious he has ever seen the child. She is watching Adelaide in earnest, expression utterly neutral—no sign of juvenile humor or irreverence. She—she truly wants to help those she has dubbed “the little people.” This favor is not a prank, but a true sign of her sincerity.

Unbelievable.

Solas stares at the da’len, his brow furrowed and his arms clasped behind his back. She notices, and one of her hands clasps her wrist as she glares at him. “Why’re you looking at me like that, elfy?”

Solas averts his gaze to where Verchiel is labeled on the map, stretched out across the massive war table. As he is thinking of a reply, Adelaide clears her throat. “Cullen, can we do anything?”

The Commander sighs. “Yes, Inquisitor. I can send a retinue of our best from Skyhold to make an impression. I don’t relish the idea of splitting up a group already weakened from leaving half its number behind in Redcliffe.”

“Good. The rest of the Inner Circle, along with forty troops, will go to the Exalted Plains to replenish our lost numbers. The Venatori might have reopened the rifts I sealed, and used the demons to devastate the region.”

“Inquisitor, that will leave Skyhold with only forty-six troops,” the Commander warns. His hand flexes on his sword pommel. “We cannot stretch our numbers too thin. The—the influences we discussed may take advantage of our weakness if they do.”

Adelaide looks up, frowning. “But what about the hundred we can recall? The Grey Wardens and the mages in the castle?”

The Ambassador shakes her head. “The Wardens and our soldiers are protecting vital trade routes through the mountain passes, and the mages are primarily composed of researchers, or children.”

Adelaide frowns down at the table, her eyes falling shut.

“What influences?” Dorian asks, at last. The Spymaster shifts, subtly, but Solas sees her gaze go to Dorian’s expression. Evaluating, he realizes, but for what?

“We have reason to believe there are Venatori spies among our numbers,” the Spymaster reveals. She does not look away from Dorian, who does not seem to notice her scrutiny.

Ah.

Dorian’s only reaction is a low curse, and a slight shake of his head. The Spymaster watches him for a few long moments, then surveys each of the Inner Circle in turn. “As well as Ben-Hassrath operatives and other factions. Recently an agent found a slip of parchment written in what I thought was a strange code, but a researcher from the University of Val Royeaux declared was Elvhen.”

Solas does not react, though the Spymaster’s pale gaze lingers on him. “Elvhen?” Adelaide asks. “Just ask Solas to translate it, then. He speaks the language perfectly.”

“Not perfectly,” Solas amends, but the damage has been done. The da’len snorts, muttering something under her breath, and the Qunari looks both suspicious and impressed.

“ _What_?” Dorian asks, eyes going wide. “You know the entirety of a dead language and you just decided to keep that knowledge to yourself?”

“I had no way to verify my claims,” Solas retorts. “For all the researchers might know, I may speak gibberish and claim it is the Elvhen tongue.” That seems to quiet Dorian, at least.

“I was under the impression that only Dalish Keepers know the secrets of written Elvhen,” the Spymaster says, shifting her focus to stare at Solas. Her eyes are pale and cold, and betray nothing. “We have precious few Dalish among our number, and none who would have access to such knowledge.”

“There is a wealth of knowledge to be found in the Fade, if one only looks,” Solas replies, straightening his back. He does not know which agent had been careless—mistakes were bound to be made, after all—but he will have to pay the Spymaster a visit, and soon, before her suspicion grows.

“No, we can use this,” the Ambassador muses, making a note on her parchment. “Spread the Inquisition’s reputation as a preserver of lost histories, and a patron of the arts. Solas could speak with professors from the University’s department of histories—”

“I would rather not, Ambassador,” he cuts in.

The Ambassador looks up, brows furrowing. “Whyever not?”

“The elders whisper it where he cannot hear, but the children are unafraid as he passes them,” Cole whispers behind him. “‘That’s the madman Mamae warned us about,’ says a little girl, a little girl who looks like—” Solas gives him a sharp look. Cole sees it, and goes silent.

The Ambassador clears her throat. “I see,” she says, delicately, crossing out something on her notes. “In that case, well.”

“Back to the issue at hand,” says the Commander.

Adelaide nods. “Right. Spies. So, there are spies in Skyhold, and that is why you can’t tell anyone about what we’ve discussed in here. Those of you who have your orders, you’re dismissed. All of us leave at first light tomorrow and go from there.”

“Wait!” the Ambassador calls, before anyone can leave. “I would like to remind all of you that we are attempting to obtain an invitation to the summer ball at the Winter Palace. Should we succeed, well…” her gaze moves over several of the Inner Circle; the Qunari, and the da’len, and Solas himself. The Ambassador smiles, gently, her expression giving nothing away. “Dancing and etiquette lessons are very likely when you get back.”

As she waits out the chorus of groans and protests from the more crass of the Inquisition’s members, Adelaide takes advantage to pick up a bag from the floor. She pulls out two books, only one of which bears her silver ribbon, and hands them to him. He takes them; her tired smile at his acceptance makes a bolt of warmth unexpectedly rush through him.

Solas clears his throat and waits for the Ambassador to end with a, “Be safe, all of you,” before making his escape. Dorian and Varric walk side by side, chatting amiably, and Solas weaves around them, lengthening his stride. There is much to do, now that the Spymaster’s suspicion of him is made abundantly clear. He will have to shift the drop points around the castle, prepare for tomorrow’s journey, deal with Lady Nightingale—

“Oi, elfy, what’s that you’ve got?” the da’len asks, nearly cornering him in the hallway outside the War Room. Solas tucks the books against his side so she will not see the titles.

“A series of essays on the morals of Elvhen mythological tales,” he replies. As expected, the da’len makes a disparaging noise and leaves him be, preferring instead the company of the Warden. A relief, in truth—he does not know how she would react to the realization that he and Adelaide are recommending poetry to each other, and he would prefer never to find out.

He reaches his room at last, and locks the door, sighing as he sits on the mattress. The Elvhen volume is unmarked by the silver ribbon, and for a heartbeat his gut twists, imagining her reaction to the poem. But then he pushes away his anxiety, and sets the volume away. He picks up _Thedosian Masters_ , the second book, and turns to where her ribbon lies.

 _I want to gather your darkness_ __  
_in my hands, to cup it like water_ __  
_and drink._ __  
_I want this in the same way_ __  
_as I want to touch your cheek –_ __  
_it is the same –_ __  
_the way a moth will come_ __  
_to the bedroom window in late Firstfall,_ __  
_beating and beating its wings against the cold glass,_ __  
_the way a horse will lower_ __  
_his long head to water, and drink,_ __  
_and pause to lift his head and look,_ __  
_and drink again,_ __  
_taking everything in with the water,_ _  
everything._

Tucked between the pages is a note, written in a blocky but neat hand:

_I mean it._

His breath catches.

She does not realize what she asks, of course. If she did, she would not say such a thing.

Reassured, Solas crumples the note and rests it on his bedside, making an idle note to burn it later. He keeps her ribbon in place as he shuts the volume, and reaches for the tome of Elvhen poetry. He spends the next half-hour searching for a poem to convey the complexity of his dilemma, and finds nothing. Then, when the candles are burnt low and his eyelids heavy, he finds another of Vhenaeris’s poems—this one, like its sister, reduced to fragmented scraps.

 _I have stood for thousands of years_  
_and have not faltered;_  
_the day I met you,_  
_my legs shook._

Solas rubs his thumb across the ink, silent in his thoughts. He takes a deep, steadying breath, and shuts the book without marking his place. There is much work to do; the business of finding another poem is inconsequential, when weighed against his other concerns. It can wait until after his excursion to the Exalted Plains.

Solas sets aside the book, and sees to preparing for the voyage.

When he is ready for tomorrow’s journey, he heads for the rotunda. The library is still bustling, and the beat of raven’s wings is frequent in the upper levels. Solas whittles the time away by filling in more of his murals, until the candles on his desk are near stubs and the library is empty.

Once the rotunda is mostly silent, save the noises of ravens’ caws and the wind outside, Solas cleans his brushes and goes to the rookery. The Spymaster is kneeling before a shrine of Andraste, her head bowed and her hands clasped in prayer. Solas waits for her to rise, and clasps his hands behind his back.

When she turns, she does not seem surprised to see him. “Solas,” she greets, her expression betraying nothing.

“In the War Room, you mentioned an intercepted note, written in Elvhen,” Solas says, straightening. “I thought to offer my services, and see if I can aid you in deciphering its meaning. If there is a radical elven movement which may undermine the Inquisition, we must know about and deal with it as quickly as possible.”

The Spymaster blinks, then inclines her head, slightly. “Indeed. The note is on my desk. Please, sit.”

There is a folded piece of paper at her desk, though Solas is not so foolish as to turn his back on the Spymaster, not when her suspicions are still an unknown. Instead he faces her, resting against the desk as he unfolds the note and scans it.

_Lion not sleeping well—maid changed bedding, said it was sweatstained and the chambermaid found vomit in his chamberpot. Aide says he has headaches. Weak from illness—to exploit. Spy seen wandering battlements late at night, insomnia likely. Slaver observed again at tavern—most likely alcoholic. Useful intel for future drugging, etc._

_Quickling didn’t eat at all yday, said she’d already eaten (no sources confirming) or wasn’t hungry. Chambermaid found reports in desk; Dogking and the Promise attacked. Drop at #48 tmrw._

_Quickling_. Adelaide.

“Well?” the Spymaster prompts. He looks up and sees her standing before him, her hands tucked behind her.

“They are status updates on members of the Inquisition,” Solas says. “Yet they have codenames to refer to specific people, it seems. ‘Slaver,’ ‘Lion,’ and ‘Quickling’ among them. There is no mention of further drops, or patterns of movement, nor who was meant to take this note.”

The Spymaster is silent, and he looks up, folding the paper neatly. She regards him through narrowed, pale eyes, and holds out one gloved hand. “The note, if you please,” she says. “Thank you for your assistance.”

Solas hesitates for a breath before dropping it into her outstretched hand. Her fingers curl and her eyes narrow further. Solas lifts his chin. “If there is something you wish to tell me, Nightingale, now would be the time.”

The Spymaster says nothing as she moves to the desk. Their arms brush against each other, and she slips the note under several sheafs of paper. Her hand presses against the desk, then fists atop the wood grain. Her right hand is tucked behind her back. “Where did you say you grew up, Solas?”

Solas straightens, clasping his hands behind his back. “A village in the north. It was a small settlement, too small to be marked on a map.”

“I see.”

She moves.

Solas had expected a blade, at the very least, but that is not what the Spymaster does. She throws herself to the side, digging her armored shoulder into his stomach and driving him into the wall. Solas gasps as his head hits the stone, and then her other gloved hand—which she had kept out of his sight—is pressing against his mouth and nose. He sucks in a breath, and tries to concentrate, tries to summon a mind blast—

His nose and throat _burn_. The dust on her glove covers his nose and mouth, and he can taste it, the metallic tang of lyrium dust and the bitterness of corrupting acid—

_Magebane._

He cannot access his mana, cannot even _breathe_ without inhaling more of the powdered magebane. Before he can think to push her off, the Spymaster pulls a knife from her belt and presses it against the soft center of his abdomen. “The village was a ruin, Solas,” she notes, eyes cold. “If that is even your name. Strange how you have so much knowledge and so little backstory. The Inquisitor may take your Fade stories at face value, but I am not so naïve.”

He cannot feel his fingers. She pulls her hand away, and Solas gags on the bitter aftertaste of magebane and his own saliva, nearly dry-heaving on her desk. Her blade remains a steady pressure through his clothes, never wavering. “Who do you work for?” she asks, letting him suck in a breath before her powdered glove wrenches him up. “Who controls the elven faction?”

“I am no one’s agent but my own,” he rasps. He tries to reach for his mana, so he is not so _defenseless_ , but the attempt only sends blistering pain running through his veins. He sucks in a breath, gritting his teeth against the onslaught, and descends into a coughing fit until he can barely breathe.

“Then you lead them,” the Spymaster says. Solas doubles over, leaning upon her desk for support, and the blade moves to rest between his ribs, within easy reach of his heart or a lung. Solas digs his fingers into the wood and screws his eyes shut.

“Yes,” he rasps.

The Spymaster tsks. “So eager to give away information?”

For a moment, he doesn’t answer, closing his eyes and focusing his energies inward. His mana is draining, too quickly to stem the loss of it, but perhaps—

“No.” He opens his eyes and reaches deep, summoning a mind-blast. The Spymaster gasps as she staggers back, and the knife falls away; it is the only opening he needs. Solas whirls on his heel and bats away the dagger, grabbing her throat and pushing her against the wall. The Spymaster bares her teeth at him, but his fingers only dig in deeper.

He should kill her. It is the smart thing to do; she already suspects him, and if he takes her memories but cannot find and destroy what evidence she has, she will suspect him again. Yet his task is not an imminent one, and her position in the Inquisition is invaluable against Corypheus.

The Inquisition needs her.

Adelaide needs her.

“Forget,” Solas commands, and the Spymaster’s harsh gaze goes distant. A heartbeat later, Solas gathers the last of his mana, and shapes it to his will. Tendrils of power sink into her memories, and he roots through them, erasing the last five minutes and whatever he can find which incriminates his agents. When it is done, he pulls the power back into himself and whispers, “Sleep.”

She slumps, and he catches her, half-dragging her into her chair. Once she is seated, he collapses, gasping for air as he hunches over the wooden floor. His mouth is dry, and he cannot feel his fingers. His mana pool is—depleted, barren in a way he has not experienced since before unlocking the artifact in the Western Approach. Mythal’s general once again brought low, by virtue of his weakness and these creatures’ ingenuity in keeping mages separated from themselves.

Solas presses a hand to his chest, as if his touch will make the agony and _emptiness_ abate, and struggles to his knees. He positions some inconsequential notes before the Spymaster, then carefully moves her so it will appear as though she had fallen asleep at her work. Then he finds the Elvhen note and staggers to the rookery banister, clinging to the railing and trying desperately to remain on his feet.

He makes it to the rotunda’s tunnel, before he gives in to the persistent itch in his throat and coughs. It is a mistake. One cough turns to many, and then rasping gags as his body continues to fight the magebane he had inhaled, continues to fight the poison in his blood, blocking his connection to the Fade.

Solas clutches at his swollen throat as one particularly loud retch echoes in the tunnel, and leans against a wooden support pillar. “Chuckles?” he hears, and looks up to see Varric standing in the doorway, a pair of spectacles on his crooked nose. “Oh, shit. You alright?”

“No,” Solas rasps, and promptly buckles, choking on his own saliva. Varric rushes to his side, gets one of Solas’s arms over his neck and wraps an arm around his waist. Carefully, he helps Solas stand, not seeming to care that Solas must lean on him to find his balance. The moment Solas is on his feet again, however, nausea overcomes him and he has to stop moving. It is several minutes before Solas can swallow the bile lingering at the back of his throat.

“Need me to get a healer?” Varric asks, as they start making their way into the Great Hall. It is not deserted—servants are clearing the tables and quietly conversing, and Varric’s desk has several sheafs of paper and an inkpot atop it. There will be gossip on the morrow.

Solas shakes his head. “Too indiscreet.”

“Andraste’s ass, Chuckles, what happened?” the rogue asks, incredulous. “You’re sweating like a pig and your fingers are like ice.”

“Thank you, Master Tethras,” Solas manages, dryly, but it aggravates the itch in his throat and he has to turn his head to keep from coughing on Varric. When he is recovered, he rasps, “I merely need to reach my quarters. It seems an illness caught me unawares.”

Solas manages to keep himself on his feet, and Varric, thankfully, doesn’t ask any more questions. Pain spikes and ebbs, and coalesces in different parts of his body—first in his knees, then behind his eyes and then settling hard and uneasy in the pit of his stomach. When they reach his room, Varric lets him go.

“You’ll be all right?” Varric asks, scratching at the back of his head. There is a crease between his brow and at the corners of his mouth, a betrayal of his concern. Solas nods, and releases him to lean upon the wall, stumbling his way to the bed. He sits, carefully, and then hangs his head and tries to breathe without coughing, tries to ignore the unsteadiness in his legs.

He tries not to focus on the emptiness within him.

“Right, I’ll be going then,” Varric says. “Don’t die on me because you didn’t want a healer, Chuckles, or else I’ll feel like shit.”

“Master Tethras,” he says, without lifting his head. “I would appreciate it if you were—discreet about this matter.”

Varric is silent for a long time, long enough that Solas looks up and stares at him. At last, the man shakes his head and huffs out a breath. “Yeah. Sure, Chuckles.”

“Thank you,” Solas says. The words come out unexpectedly heartfelt. Varric stares at him for a few more moments, the worry lines in his face deepening, before he finally nods and takes his leave. Solas sits alone in the darkness, a hungry emptiness clawing inside of him, a _wrongness_ he has only ever felt in this broken, Veiled world.

He cannot access the Fade, and the very absence of it makes him sick. And so he is careful when mapping the room in the darkness, and bringing the empty chamberpot within easy reach. When it is settled, he stretches out on the bed and curls onto his side, as if hunching in on himself will ease his throbbing headache, will lessen the sickly unease curdling in his gut.

Time passes. Eventually, the quiet of his careful, even breathing is disrupted by a knock, and—“Solas?”

Adelaide.

“Enter,” he calls, and manages to push himself into a sitting position. Torchlight from the hallway spills across his bedroom floor, making him squint at the sudden breach in darkness. Adelaide is a silhouette against the orange. With a snap of her fingers all of the candles are set alight, basking the room in a warm glow.

“Varric told me you were sick,” Adelaide says, shutting the door behind her. “Are you alright?”

“I will be,” Solas says. “It is not serious. I merely need time to recover.”

“Anything I can do?” she asks, pushing away from the door and sitting at his side. He longs to reach out and touch her, because her skin is warm and golden in the candlelight, because he remembers the warmth of her kiss and the way she had said _you don’t have to run anymore._

“I am fine, Inquisitor,” he says, wryly, as she presses the back of her hand to his sweat-soaked forehead, then his cheek. He tries not to close his eyes, tries to keep still rather than lean into her touch.

“Adelaide,” she reminds him, with a small smile. She lowers her hand and stands, going to the washbasin. She pours some water and drapes a cloth over the edge, returning to his bedside. She wets the cloth and lifts it up, dabbing at his overheated skin. “And, no, you’re not. You’re burning up. What happened?”

He catches her wrist. “It is unimportant, truly. I am already feeling much better.” He wasn’t.

“Can you still ride?” Adelaide asks, concern creasing her brow. “If you’re still sick tomorrow, I’d prefer that you stay in Skyhold to recover—”

“I will be fine,” Solas insists. His fingers tighten on her wrist, and then he lets her go to look aside. She sighs, quietly, and sets the bowl on his bedside table, beside the books. Solas lets the silence linger for a few moments, and then he says, “The soldiers defending Skyhold. Cullen seemed to imply if your plans were carried out, the fortress would be underprotected.”

“Yes,” she says, “but it would take too long for Corypheus to react—by the time his spies told him about it, and he sent an army our way, we’d have some of the groups back. And Skyhold would have no trouble in a siege. The Inquisition’s forces can do more good helping the victims of the attacks than staying in Skyhold.”

“You cannot save everyone, Inquisitor,” he says, carefully.

Adelaide looks at him. “I can try.”

Solas says nothing, and she looks at the books beside her. He does not want to see the day when she learns that difficult lesson; he does not want to see her soft heart harden, either out of grief or necessity. And so he does not correct her, though he does not look away from her.

Adelaide is oblivious to his staring; he seizes the moment, examining the curl of her dark hair, gathered just above the nape of her neck. A strand has fallen loose, framing her cheek. He marvels at her, a strange giddiness fluttering in the pit of his stomach, and he swallows hard.

And then she laughs, slightly, a soft snort and a crinkle at the corner of her eye. She shakes her head, sighing, and Solas cocks his head. “Care to share?”

“No, it’s—it’s inappropriate. You’re ill, it was just a terribly timed stray thought.”

“I do not mind,” Solas ventures. She looks at him, candlelight flickering orange over her face, scattering stars in her eyes. After a moment, she smiles, the expression shy and utterly endearing.

“Did you read the poem yet?”

Ah. “Yes,” Solas says, and looks down at the hands in his lap. “Inquisitor, I—I am not certain you know what you are asking.”

“Solas.” She takes one of his hands, and does not look at him. Her fingers play with the edge of his sleeve, and her fleeting touches are a distracting warmth. She takes a breath, as if gathering her courage, and looks at him—her gaze betrays her hesitance. A slow pink spreads across her cheeks. “Do you want me?”

For a moment, time stops altogether. They are caught in the candlelight, hands intertwined, gazes locked. Solas feels his pulse stutter, and his mouth turns to sawdust. He stares at her, a sinking weight settling in his chest, and swallows thickly. The word, when it comes, is a simple admittance.

“Yes.”

It is not a confession. It is an acceptance of a battle already lost.

_You don’t have to run anymore._

And her smile—her _smile_. It is radiant, full of simple joy and relief and giddiness, and the sight of it increases the weight tenfold. Solas stares at her as she laughs to herself, and her smile widens, and she whispers as though she is confessing a great, lovely secret—“I want you too.”

Solas says nothing. Gradually, her smile fades, her brow creasing. “What’s wrong?”

“You change— _everything_ ,” Solas admits, heartfelt, his hand tightening on hers. Her brow furrows and she attempts another smile.

“Is that… a good thing?”

He does not answer. He _cannot_. How could he? How could he possibly know?

“I can hear you thinking,” she murmurs, leaning closer. Solas stiffens, but does not move away, does nothing to discourage her. She looks down at their hands, clasped together, then carefully extricates herself, resting her hands in her lap once more. “I have—a proposal.”

“Oh?”

She nods. “You want me, and I want you, so I think we should—I think we keep this thing between us physical. Just sex. No emotions. Outside of the bedroom we remain friends, and if you like, we can act as though there’s nothing more between us. That’s it. We just have sex when we need some stress relief, and then go about our day. What do you think?”

It is a simple solution, in theory. Pure physicality—without the emotional attachment that often came with such acts. She will be first and foremost a friend, but… but they both want this, and Solas is more than capable of keeping emotion and logic separate, when needed.

Adelaide moves before he can answer.

She cups his cheek with one hand, and slowly, carefully, leans forward. Her lips press against the corner of his mouth. Solas’s breath catches, and his mouth goes dry. His eyes widen for a heartbeat, and then close of their own accord. She is warm against him, and her touch is far gentler than he deserves.

For one mad moment, he wants to pull her close, and ask her to stay. He wants it so fiercely it aches. But then she is pulling away, and her hand returns to her lap. Her smile is hesitant, and heartbreakingly hopeful.

“Think about it,” she says. “Let me know.”

 _Stay_ , he wants to say. _Please_. But he does not trust himself to speak, and so he nods, watching as she gets off the bed and returns the pitcher to its proper place. She extinguishes the candles, one by one, and pads over to the door. A crack of golden-red torchlight spills over the bed, broken by her black silhouette.

“Goodnight, Solas.”

His voice is a rasp. “Goodnight, Inquisitor.”

When she is gone, his breath shudders out of him. He rests his face in his hands, and listens to the pulse of blood in his ears.

He cannot help but feel as though he has wrapped an unbreakable chain around himself, an adamantine tether to this dying, broken world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> "To Drink," Jane Hirshfield  
> [This poem](http://deanwinchestersheart.tumblr.com/post/59694566691/whereas-i-am-not-afraid-of-anything-because)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a _fight_ , folks. but! it's here now! :)
> 
> special thanks to playwithdinos for her exquisite beta'ing. some jewels from her comments: "solas has no chill," "jesus solas" (x2), and "oh no I'm about to read smut on my laptop on the plane and the guy next to me can totally see this"

Adelaide cries out as she is knocked flat on her back. Courage kicks aside her staff and points its blade at her throat, its white armor untarnished by their spar. “You are improving,” it praises, taking a step back and offering the Inquisitor its hand. Adelaide gets to her feet and takes up the staff which Courage had procured for her.

 _A gift_ , it had called the weapon. Pure white, with a golden focusing crystal. Unadorned, but pulsing with power.

“Again,” she says. Courage only inclines its head, and falls back into a defensive stance. Adelaide does not charge the spirit this time, circling it and twirling her staff behind her. She moves like Dorian—gliding between her light-footed steps, moving her staff as smoothly as water. Yet her stance is firmer, less prone to being disrupted, thanks to the spirit’s tutelage.

Where Adelaide is smooth and controlled, Courage is all brute force and unrelenting pressure. It forces Adelaide on the defensive every time, and its blades ring through the air at the slightest movement. It gets inside Adelaide’s guard, but when its swords wrench Adelaide’s staff from her grip, Adelaide freezes, eyes going wide.

“Move!” Courage shouts, raising one of its sabers. Solas rises to his feet, ready to intervene, but Adelaide surprises him—she curses and lunges to the side, dropping to the ground and kicking out. She catches the back of the spirit’s leg, sending Courage to one knee, and scrambles away. Adelaide gets to her feet and spins on her heel, summoning a ball of electricity and shooting it at Courage.

It dissipates in the spirit’s barrier, but the attack prompts a grin. “Sloppy, but you are improving,” Courage praises, looking up and meeting Solas’s gaze. Its smile only widens. Solas narrows his eyes at it, but the spirit ignores him, getting to its feet and turning its back on him.

“I would hope so,” Adelaide shoots back, retrieving her staff. “I’ve only been training with you every night for a week.”

“And look how far you have already come,” says Courage. “I found the Veilmender a fearful little thing and soon—”

“Fearful little thing?” Adelaide repeats, her brow furrowing. Her grip tightens on her staff, and she swallows. “Is that what the spirits think of me?”

“Just so,” says Courage, spinning one of its blades. Its pristine golden cape darkens to black, and the hem of it turns ripped and jagged. But then Solas blinks, and the spirit is perfection once more, not a blemish or hint of corruption in sight. “But I will help you become a warrior, Veilmender, if that is what you want.”

“Adelaide is not—” Solas starts.

The spirit points its secondary blade at him, without ever once looking in his direction. “Do not ever presume to speak for her,” Courage says, coldly. Solas narrows his eyes and carefully gets to his feet as Courage tilts its head at Adelaide. “What is it you want, Veilmender?”

Adelaide looks between them, swallowing hard. Her lip is split and there is a bruise on her cheek, when Courage had gotten too close. “I—”

“Courage, my friend,” Solas interrupts, tilting his head toward the beach path, “will you walk with me?”

Courage sheathes its blades. “We will be but a moment,” it promises Adelaide. “Work on your forms in the meanwhile.” It turns toward Solas, and tilts its head. They walk out of the garden side-by-side; Solas clasps his hands behind his back, and Courage keeps its hands on its sword pommels.

Solas waits until they are out of earshot. He stops on the hillside, watching the sea-grass sway in the ocean breeze. The Nightmare’s presence is visible in the stormdark sky and the occasional rain droplet, but that is the extent. It will not be breaking down this seaside haven to get to Adelaide anytime soon.

“Have I done something to offend you?” he asks, at last, observing the spirit’s reddened glow from the corner of his eye.

“Offend me,” it muses. It takes a long time to continue. “No, you have not offended me.”

“I have never met you before you made yourself known to the Inquisitor, correct?”

“Just so.”

Solas cannot keep his frustration from his voice. “Then why the hostility? We both want the same thing for her.”

“Do we?” it asks, expressionless. Solas looks at it full-on, and it stares back at him. Its eyes narrow, and flash red; its white armor blackens at the edges, becomes rent and bloodstained. Courage clenches its jaw and straightens its back, and the fracture is sealed—the armor and the composure is pristine once more.

“What happened to you, friend?” Solas asks. It was rare to see a spirit resist corruption; rarer still to be allowed to witness the struggle between its natures. If he could help ensure it remember itself, if he could help keep it from falling prey to whatever affliction plagued it—

“I am not your friend,” says Courage. It looks at him, and smiles; one of its eyes turn blood-red. “Wake up.”

 

 

 

Solas wakes with a start. It is not even dawn yet; he attempts to light a candle, but the Fade does not respond to his call. A throbbing migraine settles behind his eye, and when he sits up, the ghost of the dragon’s claws twinge through the muscles of his abdomen. Solas hisses out a curse and touches the sore area with careful fingertips.

There is a leftover salve in his pack, meant to ease such a pain. Solas carefully stands before the dawnlight, smoothing the salve over the pink, scarred skin, puckered over his sternum and stretching to his side. It had been the longest of the claw marks, and the deepest.

He tries to channel healing magic through the salve, but it only worsens his headache. His mana pool is still infuriatingly empty, and the Fade does not respond when he reaches for it. He does not know how long magebane lasts, and he cannot ask without giving his ‘illness’ away—there is nothing he can do but wait.

Fenedhis.

He shrugs on a fresh tunic, frayed at the collar and the sleeves but clean, and finishes his preparations for the journey. When his pack is ready and his staff propped against the bedframe, he heads for Adelaide’s room. One of his people pass him without giving him a second glance, and he sees a loose stone resting on the windowsill, carefully returned to its niche. A parchment note is behind it, and he takes it, reading it as he walks.

 _M.d.F wants anti-aging potion, unknown intent._ And then, underlined twice: _Songbird knows of us; how much is unknown. Alert FH. Destroyed as many docs as possible, but not all. Further search req. Drop at #17 tmrw._

Solas burns it in one of the candelabras as he passes. He will have to tell the herbalist that this drop was received, not intercepted, but ensuring Adelaide’s safety is his current priority.

Time passes differently, in the Fade. Courage could have done any number of things in his absence.

The door is unlocked; he calls out her name as he enters. “Come in, Solas,” she says. He ascends the staircase, only to find her sitting on her bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes with one wrist and holding parchment in another. She is wearing a loose nightshirt that exposes a curve of her shoulder, and her hair is down. She stifles a yawn as she reads her report. “What do you need?” she asks, not looking up from the parchment.

Solas clears his throat, turning away even as he examines her from the corner of his eye. She _seems_ well, but he knows how deceiving appearances are. “I wished to discuss the matter of our mutual guardian from the Nightmare. Inquisitor, I do not believe your tutor to be benign, or even a spirit of Courage.”

She furrows her brow. “What do you mean?”

“It is fractured,” Solas says. “Whenever one does not look at it head-on, its aura becomes red, not golden. Whatever suspicions I had before, they are now tenfold. I believe Courage is most likely a façade for a corrupted spirit, playing a longer game.”

At that, she sets down the parchment, and sits up, resting her chin on her knees. “Courage hasn’t done anything,” she says, “except train me. It’s never been alone with me, much less have the chance to try and possess me.”

He folds his hands behind his back, his fists clenching until his nails dug into the meat of his palms. “Inquisitor,” he says, and pauses, attempting to think of the correct turn of phrase. “If you are defending Courage because it has taken the shape of your sister—”

“I’m going to stop you _right_ there,” Adelaide says, sitting up. Her eyes narrow. “Were you just trying to imply that my judgement is impaired because this spirit happens to look like my sister? Is that right?”

Solas exhales, staring at her. “The connection between you and your sister—it is something to be exploited, Inquisitor. And if this spirit sees _any_ sign of hesitation or weakness—”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“You are not seeing the dangers of Courage’s fascination with you—”

“And why is that, Solas?” she interrupts, her gaze going sharp and intent. “Because I’m too short-sighted to realize that Courage using my sister’s face is a blatant attempt at manipulation? Because I’m human, and humans are, what was it, _blind to the beauty of the Fade_?”

He stiffens, fists flexing behind his back. “That is not what I meant,” he says, quietly.

She looks away, wrapping her arms around her legs. Staring at one of the glass stained windows, she says, “Solas, what do you think I had to deal with in the aftermath of the Conclave? I _know_ my sister is dead. I _know_ she’s not coming back. And you insult me when you imply that I could fall for a hollow mask like Courage’s.” When she looks at him, a muscle in her jaw tics. She unfolds her legs and stands up, crossing to her vanity. As she picks up her brush and starts to run it through her hair, her dark eyes meet his through the looking glass. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Do you still wish for me to accompany your party to the Exalted Plains?”

“If you’re recovered from last night. What was it, a stomach bug?”

He inclines his head, dropping his gaze to examine the rumpled bedspread’s pattern. “I will be fine. And—yes, I believe so.”

“Then I’ll see you at the gate,” she says, simply. He takes the dismissal for what it is; he leaves her room in silence, ignoring the hollow weight carving its way through the pit of his stomach.

Perhaps he had overstepped, but she had needed to be warned about Courage. He could rest easier, knowing that she was aware of his suspicions. Even if she claims impartiality, perhaps the warning would better prepare her for Courage’s inevitable betrayal.

He returns to his rooms, but only to grab his pack, and write out a coded note for the herbalist. He drops it in the same place he had intercepted the original note, then shoulders his pack and heads for the stables.

Their group is already waiting at the gate, tired but awake in the predawn light. The Enchanter sits primly upon her roan, impeccable despite the early hour and lack of onlookers, observing the courtyard with a critical eye, the reins to the Inquisitor’s paint in one manicured hand. A painted box is tied behind her saddle, likely to hold her baubles, and cannot help but roll his eyes at her vanity. The Qunari is chatting with the Warden, and Cole sits atop the gate, his head cocked and his legs swinging in the air.

The horsemaster is with his mare when Solas arrives at the stables. The man nods, scratching at his thick grey stubble, and pats her flank. “Solas. You need anything? Just fed your horse, so she should be good for the journey to Orlais.”

“No. Thank you, Master Dennet.”

He nods again, and leaves the stall. Solas is the one who brushes his mare down, and saddles her, making sure the strap is secure under her belly. As he is coaxing her into taking the bit, he hears Adelaide’s voice. “Master Dennet, I—I need to speak with you. It’s about your family.”

His mare snuffs, her ears flicking to the new noise, and Solas goes still. “Did they send another letter?” the horsemaster asks, voice warm.

“Not quite.” Their footsteps and voices fade, then, and Solas returns his attention to his mare. He scratches the stripe on her nose, then takes her reins in hand and leads her out of the stall, slowly.

Adelaide and the horsemaster are just outside the stables, sitting side-by-side. The horsemaster is reading a letter in his right hand, and his left is balled at his side. The courtyard is quiet in the predawn light, largely empty—theirs will be the last of the three to leave—and her voice is loud enough that he can hear her every word.

“I’m so sorry,” says Adelaide. “We just received word late last night. The man said he saw your wife and daughter kept the Inquisition soldiers alive and—the Venatori killed everyone who resisted. It’s possible they were sent west with the other captives, but…”

The horsemaster shakes his head, and exhales hard, his breath hitching on the inhale. “I should have been with them,” he says. “You’re doing good work, Inquisitor, but—if staying behind would’ve saved them, I never would’ve left the farm.”

“I understand.” Adelaide looks down, takes a breath. “They were good people. I’m sorry.”

“Inquisitor.” Dennet crumples the letter in his fist and swallows hard. “Make sure you kill the bastards.”

She nods, and Dennet gets to his feet. He turns around; his eyes are wet and his breath is hitched, but when he sees Solas, he schools his features and moves the crumpled parchment out of sight. Solas waits for the man to pass before looking to Adelaide, who hasn’t moved from her spot.

“Are you ready?” she asks, turning her head. Solas nods, and she stands. “Let’s go, then.”

 

 

 

It takes them four days to reach the Exalted Plains. Adelaide speaks to him only when giving orders, and rides with the Enchanter. The Qunari makes tentative overtures at conversation, but, inevitably, such talk ends in either silence or an argument. The very concept of the Qun offends Solas, but the oxman’s persistence in defending it, even when confronted with his ideology’s evident flaws, irritates him more. Cole makes his appearances, but more often, he is separate from the party, likely healing the small hurts he finds in the countryside.

In the end, Solas keeps to himself—biding his time until his mana recovers from the Spymaster’s poison, allowing the others to handle what fights occurred, and avoiding conversation with all but the Warden and a few elven soldiers who were not yet his. The Warden provides an outlet for conversation, and with the right words, the elves could be useful for further intelligence. He does not have many soldiers in his fold, only servants; soldiers would have greater access to certain parts of Skyhold.

There is one man whose anger burns in his eyes, a steward turned guardsman. He mentions a sister in the Denerim alienage, kidnapped and murdered by an Arl’s son on her friend’s wedding day. The guardsman is only in the Inquisition’s employ because they pay elves and humans equally—and when his means are sufficient enough, he plans to take his wife and infant daughter from the alienage.

“Forgive me,” Solas says, “I do not think I caught your name.”

“Kallen,” says the guardsman. “Solas, isn’t it?”

He nods, and looks away, staring straight ahead. “Perhaps, when this is over, you and your family will not need to serve humans in order to live in peace and comfort.” Ahead, he sees the Enchanter’s back stiffen, then relax. She moves her head, presumably to observe the scenery—but Solas will take no chances, not after the Spymaster. He continues, “The Inquisition is already shaking the world’s institutions to their foundations. Perhaps the Inquisitor’s example can affect the treatment of your people as well.”

It won’t. He has lived far too long to succumb to such idealism. But the Enchanter looks ahead again, and Solas’s grip on his reins loosens.

The guardsman snorts. “And perhaps the Maker’s glorious return is going to happen in five minutes. Humans are too used to keeping us under their heel to even _think_ about change.” Out of the corner of his eye, Solas sees the guardsman give a small, rueful smile. “Won’t keep us from wishing, I s’pose.”

Solas hums a detached note of agreement, and makes a note to have the herbalist approach him once they return to Skyhold. He and the guardsman ride side-by-side for the rest of the way to the surviving camp, though the journey is spent in silence.

It is nearly sunset when they finally see an Inquisition banner flying in the distance, just beyond a hill. A cheer goes up at the sight. Solas cannot stop his own smile—four days in the saddle had been trying. It will be good, to rest for a while.

Yet when the party reaches the crest of the hill, Adelaide stiffens. She holds up a hand to halt the procession; while the soldiers pull back, the Inner Circle rides to her side. Solas sees what lies below in the valley and his grip on his mare’s reins tighten.

“Damned bastards,” the Warden says, lowly.

The grass is charred, black with soot. The wind carries the smell of ash and rotted corpses on it. Adelaide urges her horse forward, down into the camp, and is the first to dismount, followed by the rest of the party. Ash sifts under his feet as he takes in the damage.

The tents are broken, slashed and useless. The corpses are too charred to distinguish one from another, and were left where they were felled, abandoned to ripen in the sun. The potions table is upturned, hacked to pieces, but there is no evidence of broken vials anywhere. The strike team had taken the potions supply, then, and likely the grenades and herbs as well. Solas scans the landscape surrounding the group, but they are alone here—alone with broken tents, and corpses left to ripen in the sun, too charred to be distinguishable.

The camp had been left as a ruin—and as a warning.

Adelaide steps over a body, and presses a hand to her stomach. “Lace Harding was supposed to meet us here,” she says. Her voice shakes.

“She was stationed here?” asks a soldier. “Maker.”

Adelaide closes her eyes. “She was the one who sent us the note.”

“Scout Harding is clever, my dear. Have faith,” says the Enchanter. Solas looks at her, and she only arches a brow, a wordless challenge—one Solas ignores.

“She could’ve been shipped to the same place as the Redcliffe folk,” says another soldier, their requisitions agent. It is meant to be a comfort, but none seem reassured.

Adelaide runs her hands through her hair, mussing her braid, and exhales hard through her nose. “We need to build a pyre,” she says, quietly. “Lady Vivienne, if you would like to go to the grove now and come back here, we’ll be waiting.”

“That would be splendid, my dear, thank you,” the Enchanter says. “Bull, darling, would you accompany me? I shall need someone to take the heart from the beast.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

The Enchanter chooses six other men, most of them Orlesians who had joined the organization, and sets off. Solas watches her party disappear around a jut of stone and turns back to Adelaide, who is kneeling beside a fallen soldier, closing her eyes with two fingers. “May the Maker take you to His side,” she whispers to the corpse, then looks up and sees him watching.

“Solas,” she says, standing up, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Name it.”

“We need to find a new campsite. There’s nothing for us here.” She looks at the ruined campsite and swallows. “If you could get a few others and find a suitable camp location for us, I would really appreciate it.”

Solas inclines his head. “Of course, Inquisitor.”

They stare at each other for a moment, then Adelaide nods to herself, turning away to help construct the pyre. Solas enlists the Warden; the guardsman volunteers himself, and chooses five other men and women Solas does not know. They wait until Adelaide lowers a torch to the bottom of the pyre; Solas watches the flames lick at the wood and the husks of Inquisition soldiers, then turns his horse and sets off at a slow pace.

As they pull out of the campsite, which had been ringed by cliffsides, the land evens out—save for the towering rockfaces, which reach from the ground like bony fingers. One of such mountains bears a giant wolf carved into its face, its muzzle pointed toward the sunset as if it wards the land against the night.

Solas looks away. Their small party is silent, save a few, infrequent mutterings to their Maker to receive the slaughtered’s souls. Solas himself does not dwell upon the carnage; this fight against Corypheus has always been a war, and every war has its cost.

He only hopes that Adelaide will not blame herself for this loss.

It is nearly dark by the time they find a suitable location; a grassy hill next to the river, elevated enough to give a good strategic view of most of the valley. Further west lies a ruin of an Elvish building, rising above the evening fog, black against the deep blue of twilight.

And between the ruins and the camp is the riverbank where Wisdom—

Where Wisdom—

 _Died_ , he thinks, forces himself to think. He swallows. Its loss is still visceral, a fresh wound rather than an old ache, and despite himself his breath hitches. He fists his hands until his nails dig painfully into flesh; the brief bites of pain are enough to ground him.

Half of the party rides back to the ruined campsite to bring the Inquisitor’s group to the new location. Solas stands on the edges of the camp, hands folded behind his back, staring at the place Wisdom had died, until darkness falls.

The Enchanter’s party arrives before the Inquisitor’s. She carries the elaborate box in her lap, tethered in place with magic, and treats it with the utmost care. Only she and the Qunari are allowed to handle it.

“She doesn’t want our grubby doglord hands on that,” one of the Fereldens jest, when his offer of aid to take the box from its magical constraints is spurned.

The Enchanter graces him with a smile. “Not at all, darling. We both serve the Inquisition; your country of origin is hardly a concern of mine. Nonetheless, this has nothing to do with you.” Her tone is not outright hostile, but the Ferelden colors anyway, ducking his head and muttering _yes’m._

But when she and her box are in her tent, the Orlesian soldiers are quick to tell a fireside tale of a slaughtered snowy wyvern, and how the Enchanter herself had cut open its chest to take its heart. She had mentioned nothing of its purpose, but had dismissed a few soldiers’ voiced concerns with an assertion that her task was sanctioned by the Inquisitor herself. _That_ , apparently, had put an end to all vocal curiosity.

All at once, Solas remembers the note about her potion. And then he understands—he turns away, so the soldiers will not see his disgust, and shakes his head. Of _course_ the Enchanter would dabble in blood magic; of course she would be the type to denounce it publicly, yet use it for her own gains.

The sheer hypocrisy of it grates on him.

He wonders how long the Enchanter has been preserving herself thus. He wonders if Adelaide knows the truth of her companion’s intentions.

He shakes his head, then begins to set up the nightly wards. He places a double layer of them on the outer ring of camp, ensuring that they will have ample time, should Corypheus’s forces attempt an ambush in the night. When that task is done, he retrieves his mending work from his bedroll and sits before the fire, utilizing the last vestiges of daylight to sew the tears in his patched tunics.

At some point, the Qunari believes he is welcome to sit beside Solas. It takes him several moments to position his bad ankle how he wants it before sitting heavily beside him. A flask of ale is in his shortened hand. Solas acknowledges him only by glancing his way before turning back to his work.

“So, you and the boss had a fight,” the Qunari starts, without preamble. Solas would find his candor refreshing, had the warrior chosen an alternate topic.

“I fail to see how you came to that conclusion,” he returns, snapping the thread with a flame and carefully tying it into a knot, “or how it is any of your concern.”

“She takes you everywhere, Solas,” the Qunari states, flatly. “But she hasn’t so much as looked at you since we left Skyhold.”

“Ah.” Solas turns the shirt over in his hands, looking for tears he had missed. He can hear hoofbeats in the distance.

“She’s shaken up by what happened at the camp,” the warrior says, leaning toward him. “I know you know that.”

“You are her friend as well, if I recall,” Solas points out, not looking away from the shirt, not allowing his hands to still. If he stops fiddling with the shirt, he will have no distraction to ground him and his emotions will show. “You were there for her after the dragon. I doubt anything I say would have the same effect.”

The Qunari lets out a breath and takes a deep drink before answering. “Damn, you’re tough to crack,” he mutters, before turning his head and facing him head-on. Solas watches him out of the corner of his eye, picking at an unsatisfactory line of stitches. “Look, Solas, take it from me. We’re a team. We fight assholes, and we watch each other’s backs. But when there’s a rift in the team, it shits _everything_ up. Now, it isn’t my business to intervene—”

“What is this, then, Iron Bull?”

“ _Advising_ ,” he says, pausing to grumble _mouthy shit_ under his breath. “As I was _saying_ —” and this he says with a hint of a smile in his voice, though when Solas looks up his expression is blank, “—it isn’t my business to intervene between two adults, but we’ll be here for weeks. So my advice is to apologize for whatever it is you did.”

He drops the pretense of working on his tunic, feels his nose scrunch in his annoyance. “What _I_ did? You do not even know what happened!”

“You’re right. I don’t,” the Qunari agrees. The hoofbeats grow louder in the distance. The Qunari smirks at him. “But your reaction told me everything I needed to know.”

Fenedhis. He had forgotten how careful he must be, with this man.

Solas looks away, closing his eyes with a deep breath. After he exhales, he reins himself in, blanking his expression and relaxing his body. _Calm_ , he thinks, and when he looks at the Qunari again, nothing gives him away.

The Qunari’s one eye is bright against the firelight, gleaming and pensive despite his smile. “Some of the men are playing blackjack,” he says, nodding to the assembled group of Fereldens on the other side of the table. “You know how to play cards?”

“I am not much of a gambler these days,” Solas says, looking back at his tunic.

The Qunari winces in sympathy. “Got stung?”

“I lost much, yes,” Solas replies, lifting his gaze to stare into the fire. Before the warrior can reply, the Warden’s horse rides into camp, soon followed by the Inquisitor’s. Her hair is fully undone, loose around her shoulders, and her armor is stained with soot and dried blood. Solas makes note of the Qunari lumbering to his feet and moving toward the gamblers, but does not look away from the Inquisitor.

The Warden helps her dismount, putting a hand on the small of her back to steady her. Solas watches for a moment, some foreign part of him riled at the intimacy of it. Yet the Inquisitor doesn’t seem to notice, thanking him with a worn smile as she turns to her paint and strokes its neck. A soldier boy offers to take care of her horse, and she thanks him, too, granting him a smile before disappearing into her tent.

Solas looks away, and sees the Qunari looking pointedly at him. Solas keeps his expression serene as he looks down at his shirt, folding it and draping the patched fabric over his knee. After a long moment, he rises, setting it in his bedroll. It is a warm night, and they have precious few tents as it is.

Solas will not mind sleeping under the stars, tonight.

When his bedroll is laid out among the other soldiers’, he walks to the edge of camp again, distorting the wards so his presence will not trip them. His gaze lingers on the shine of the crescent moons on the water’s surface, then move right, where crumbled stones had encircled his closest friend, bound it against its will.

He remembers how Cassandra’s blade had sunk into Wisdom’s flesh, a necessary distraction to keep its twisted form away from the Warden and Adelaide. He remembers his scream when he saw Wisdom’s blood on Cassandra’s sword, how his throat had gone raw when he saw Wisdom buckle from its wounds before all of the stones had been destroyed.

Even now, his chest hurts at the memory, and he closes his eyes. His hands fist at his side, and he takes a deep breath before striding away from the camp, toward Wisdom’s final resting place. It would not be right, to linger in this place and not pay his respects.

And the riverbank is far enough from camp that he will be afforded some semblance of privacy.

He can feel traces of the spirit, when he reaches the river. He can feel the vestiges of its perpetual calm, and if he closes his eyes he hears— _ma ghilana mir dir’nan_.

“My friend,” he whispers, in Elvhen. “I miss you.”

Slowly, he kneels, his palm brushing over black grass, the last remnant of Wisdom’s lightning attacks. His breath leaves him, heavy under the weight of memory. He closes his eyes and sits, listening to the chirp of crickets and the rush of water.

It is a long time spent in quiet solitude, before he hears the footsteps. Solas stiffens at the intrusion, reaching for his staff, but stills when he hears her voice. “Would you mind some company?” Adelaide asks. Solas keeps his hand on his staff for several long moments, before resting his hands in his lap and inclining his head.

“By all means, Inquisitor.”

She settles beside him, an arm’s length away, and some part of him is grateful for the distance. He still has not come to a decision about her—her offer of physical intimacy. He waits for her to speak, but she does not. She tucks her knees under her chin and stares at the stars. Moonlight shines on her hair, bathing her in silver and blue. Her sparse freckles, clustered across the bridge of her nose, are a pale contrast against her silverlit skin.

“I am sorry,” he offers, after several more minutes of quiet. “Courage worries me, and I felt you were not taking the threat seriously enough. Yet the remark about your sister was uncalled for.”

Adelaide does not say anything, at first. As her silence drags on, he looks at her, only to see her looking at him. Her dark gaze is pensive, and she looks as though she is weighing her response. “She was my hero, Solas, but she was always there to protect me. Always. And when she died I felt—I felt _weak_. I felt helpless because I had never lived in a world where my sister wasn’t there to pull me out of the fire. Courage… Courage makes me feel like I can handle the world without her.”

“I understand,” Solas says. “I—” He starts, stops, looks away.

Out of the corner of his eye, Adelaide reaches for him, so very careful. Her hand rests lightly on the top of his arm, a reassuring gesture that only heightens his awareness of her. “But I saw her point her sword at your throat. I believe you when you say she is dangerous, but I am not worried about _myself_ , Solas.”

Her unspoken words are heavy in the air between them. Her hand pulls away, and he is colder in its absence. “Courage is no threat to me,” he says, after a moment. “Inquisitor—Adelaide. May I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“When Courage asked what you wanted, what were you going to say?”

Adelaide breathes in, and does not respond, at first. Solas waits, but as her silence lingers, he begins to think she will not answer. “Forgive me,” he says, “I was only curious.”

Her breath rushes out of her. “I want to be strong,” she admits, a tremor in her voice.

Solas stills, and listens.

“I want to be strong,” she says again, quieter.

Solas is quiet as he regards her, turning over her words in his head. Matters like this—matters of self-doubt, and uncertainty—cannot, _should not_ , be settled by an outside party. She will not think herself strong until she believes herself to be. “Ah,” he says, finally. “You think you are not already?”

She shakes her head. “I’m terrified,” she admits. “All the time. A good leader should be brave, should be _confident_ and I’m—I’m just _me_. A sheltered mage who depended on her sister too much.”

“Yet you are doing well,” he says, quietly. It is the only thing he can think to say. “Besides. I am certain if Cassandra had doubts with the direction of the Inquisition, she would be sure to inform you.”

That gets a laugh out of her. The sight of her smile relieves him, lightens the stone that rests heavy in his chest. But soon her smile fades and she unfolds herself to lay down on the grass, hands clasped over her stomach. She is closer, like this, he thinks, though he does not reach for her.

She is lovely in the moonlight.

Solas looks at her and thinks— _what is the harm?_ It would be one thing to become emotionally invested with her; that path would only lead to ruin and betrayal, and his hands have caused enough harm. But—to engage in pure physicality—to attempt detachment in this, from her, from this world—

It is a risk. He is more than aware of his failings, and _this_ could—lead to ruin.

Her voice disrupts his woolgathering. “I’m sorry, too,” she says, turning her head to look at him. “I shouldn’t have pulled the human card, at Skyhold. It was cruel of me.”

“I likely deserved it,” Solas allows, with a small smile. She returns it, a slow curl of her lips that makes his chest ache. _What is the harm?_ he thinks again, and some darker, more selfish part of him whispers: _Haven’t I lost enough? Sacrificed enough? Do I not deserve even this shred of peace?_

No. He deserves nothing but the pain of the dinan’shiral, and one woman’s gentle touch is—far too kind, for him.

But he wants.

Oh, how he _wants_.

He does not realize he is staring until she pushes herself up again, and moves to sit beside him. The backs of their knees touch; it is a startlingly casual thing, how she treats physical contact. “This is where your friend died, isn’t it?”

Solas inhales, then lets the breath out. _Balance._ “Yes.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t save it.”

“That is the reality of this world, Inquisitor,” he says. “It will take all good things until there is nothing left.” He closes his eyes, bowing his head as he clenches his jaw and digs his fingernails into skin.

Her hand presses flat against the back of his shoulder before smoothing across his back. She rests her head atop his shoulder, whispering, “Is this alright, Solas?” and when he whispers _yes_ she sighs, and settles more surely against him. He focuses on her touch—a comforting presence, rubbing in slow, comforting circles over his back.

He closes his eyes. “Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there; I do not sleep,” she whispers, and he opens his eyes, lifting to his gaze to the moons above them. Adelaide’s hand moves across his back once more, settling atop his opposite shoulder.

His heart is racing. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

“Do not stand at my grave and cry,” he murmurs back. She smells like smoke and death, not a trace of citrus to be found, and he finds himself—missing it. She does not seem the same, without her perfume. “I am not there. I did not die.”

_Thedosian Masters._

He had nearly forgotten that poem.

Solas lifts his arm, his fingertips brushing across the backs of her knuckles. “I think we skipped the rest of the poem,” she mutters, prompting a half-smile. She lifts her head.

“Most likely.” He turns his head and—she is close. She smiles at him, pulling away, and when her hands are in her lap he touches her elbow. She stills, watching him, so very careful in her movements.

His mouth goes dry. “I have not forgotten your offer,” he rasps. Her lips part, her tongue brushing against the tip of her upper lip and he wants—he wants—he _wants_.

He does not deserve this. He does not deserve _her_ , does not deserve her kindness or compassion or smiles, not after what he did to his world and certainly not after what he plans to do to hers.

 _I want_ —

“Oh?” she asks, and he does not fail to notice how she leans toward him, just slightly.

Solas swallows. He cannot look away from the bow of her mouth. Too late does he realize he is still touching her elbow, and draws his hand back as if burned. He forces himself to breathe, to look her in the eye. “There could be—complications. Are you certain?”

“I am,” she says. “Are you?” She leans back, and the retreat allows him to breathe. “I know that, as the Inquisitor, there is—are—” She stops, clearing her throat, and tries again. Her voice comes out stronger. “Solas, but I want you to know that you can always say no to me. The last thing I want is you to be pressured into doing _anything_ you are uncomfortable with. So long as you wish to… be with me—” she stalls, searching for the words, her tongue darting out again.

Solas stills her with a touch. Again, thunder rumbles, louder than the last time. “I do,” he says, and his heart _pounds_ at that admission, at its implications. He gives himself a moment, thinking over what he has confessed. After a moment, he swallows and whispers—“Yes. I do.”

It would be kinder, to let her go.

But he is too selfish to deny himself the comfort of her warmth.

They do not lean toward each other, but Solas lifts a hand, dares to run the backs of his fingers down the apple of her cheek. Her dark gaze does not stray from his face. She catches his wrist, turns her head to kiss first his fingertips, then his palm, then his wrist.

His breath catches at the intimacy of it. His gaze lifts, briefly, to the campfires flickering a hundred feet away. No soldier watches them; it would likely be too dark for any human eyes to see them sitting by the river.

Adelaide says nothing as she lowers his hand and rests her cheek atop his shoulder again. Solas folds his hands in his lap, keeping his eyes on the night sky. Together they trace the shapes of clouds against the darkness and wait for the dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POEMS USED:  
> Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, Mary Elizabeth Frye
> 
> sadly, there was no smut (with apologies to kauri, in case the a/n got her hopes up). 
> 
> you beautiful readers are the wind beneath my wings. see you in two months ♥ ~~hopefully it won't actually take that long OTL~~


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha i'm alive but barely. protip to ppl who aren't in college yet: don't do everything at once, because you will die. but the good news is I have the next chapter outlined, and summer is soon, so hopefully y'all won't be waiting six months for the next update. ;_;

Adelaide leaves the cottage by the sea early, and Courage soon follows her, taking its protection from the Nightmare with it. Perhaps the Nightmare has lost interest in its little hunt, or its focus was on Adelaide alone, for he has the sudden luxury of spending the rest of the night alone.

His first stop is at Skyhold. He finds the sleeping mind of the castle’s herbalist, who is dreaming of a tourney. She stands beside the seated crowd, lingering in an area clearly reserved for the poor. She watches an unmarked knight ride against an Orlesian chevalier, a red ribbon in her hands. A favor. Interesting.

He clears his throat, deliberately fuzzing the details of the dream, and watches as the herbalist sways, abruptly disoriented. A touch of his hand to her shoulder focuses her, and when she turns, seeing the hood of shadow that conceals his features, she lowers her head. “My Lord. I am honored.”

“Did that knight give you his favor?” Solas asks, nodding to the figures of her dream, frozen in time.

The herbalist’s cheeks pinken, but she does not look up at him, keeping her gaze on his feet. “ _Her_ favor, actually, but—yes. She wanted to follow in Ser Aveline’s footsteps.” She clears her throat. “What do you need of me, my lord?”

“I understand my primary agent at Skyhold is currently unable to receive your intelligence.”

“Solas. Right. He’s out with the Inquisitor.”

Solas folds his hands behind his back. “Have you received an update as to the locations of the power sources Solas alerted our friends to?”

“Ah—yes. Could you draw up Skyhold for me, my lord?”

“There is no need to call me that,” he tells her, even as he banishes the sight of the tourney and builds the Great Hall of Skyhold around them. He wants to build it as he remembers it—polished white walls, crystal floors with rugs so intricately woven each one was created over the course of twenty years, golden mosaics and tapestries on the walls. But such a setting would be unfamiliar to this woman, and she would not belong in such splendor in her roughspun clothes.

Instead, he rebuilds Tarasyl’an Te’las as the Inquisitor has restored it. The walls have lost their lustre and their tapestries have rotted away, but in their place he raises scaffolding, banners that bear the all-seeing eye of the Inquisition, a throne wreathed in golden flames. The herbalist watches the castle rise around her with wide eyes. When it is done, she lets out a small, audible breath.

“My room is this way,” she says. “If I open a door, will it, uh—”

“It will be whatever you expect it to be,” he informs her, clasping his hands behind his back. She nods, matter-of-fact, and tucks her hair behind her pointed ears. With another steadying breath she leads him to her room. When they enter, however, she frowns.

“My bed’s not that color.” Instantly, the sheets change from their former deep red to a pale beige, the Fade shaping itself to her expectations. “Weird,” she mutters, then colors as she looks at him. “Ah, forgive me, my lord—”

“There is nothing to forgive,” he says, attempting a smile. She mutters another _my lord_ and goes to the desk, picking up sheaves of parchment. Her hand shakes when she hands it to him. He takes it, but does not look at it. Instead, he stares at her and says, “Am I truly so frightening?”

She opens her mouth, and then closes it, looking up at him with wide eyes. He has concealed his face, blurring his features so she will not realize that he is the same man to whom she has spent months surreptitiously passing information. Still, she takes a long time to answer, a furrow creasing between her brows as she stares at him. “I… the legends about you…”

Of course. _Of course_.

“I see,” he says, unable to keep the coldness from his voice. “I will not keep you. Ensure that the physical copies of these are sent to Solas immediately.”

He turns away, dispelling the dream before she can say anything, leaving him with the Fade’s imitation of the documents. He rifles through them, absently taking note of locations where the power wells were found—Crestwood, a museum in Val Royeaux, and some ruins in the Exalted Plains.

Excellent.

He checks each location, memorizes its place on the map, before closing his eyes and returning his dreaming self to his tether. When he opens his eyes, he stands in the campsite, surrounded by dreaming minds but still alone.

He finds each artifact, glimpses memories preserved at both day and night to ensure he will recognize the locations later. When he is certain he will be able to remember the artifacts’ presence, should their party pass any, he slips once more into the deepest memories the Fade holds.

He avoids the memories of the Marches—he has seen enough death and despair of late—and instead observes, quietly, a bastardized festival in an elven village, before the Marches claimed their second homeland.

It seems to be a celebration of Ghilan’nain; a priest bearing her markings lights the first of a thousand candles, and calls for Ghilan’nain to guide the People to prosperity in the next year. The air smells of woodsmoke and incense, and the villagers sing a tune so old even Solas recognizes it, though he does not remember the words. The elves had probably changed the lyrics, anyway.

He thinks of how Ghilan’nain would have reacted to this festival, and his stomach twists.

He does not stay long in that memory.

Instead, he watches daily lives of an age long past—elven children playing games while their parents work or converse with friends; women clad in black and indigo, collecting flowers for a funeral; a celebration of a wedding, where bride and groom both wore richly embroidered fabrics.

He wakes slowly, with the wedding drumbeat still echoing in his ears. The rhythm is soon replaced with birdsong, and quiet chatter from the campfire behind his bedroll. Solas changes his shirt and rewraps his feet, then stands up and joins his companions.

Adelaide and the Qunari are sitting around the campfire while she feeds fish onto simmering coals; the Enchanter and the Warden, it seems, have yet to rouse. There is a small group of soldiers at the base of the hill, but the rest of the company is gone. Cole is nowhere to be found—he has been so scarce this entire journey, Solas wonders if the spirit is avoiding him, in hopes that Solas will forget the breach of privacy.

 _No_ , he thinks, a silent self-scolding. _Do not be so arrogant. There are hurts in this valley, stronger than your own._

“Heya, Solas,” the Qunari greets, amicably. Solas nods a greeting and sits across from him, lifting his face to the sun, eyes falling shut. “The Boss’s trying her hand at cooking today.”

Solas doesn’t move. “Where is the rest of the company?”

“Blackwall is still sleeping. Vivienne is on her way back to Skyhold,” Adelaide replies, brow furrowed as she scrutinizes their breakfast. “I told our men to search the area for any rifts, since… our other maps were destroyed. We’re going to see if we can find hints of the strike team’s hideout.”

“And kill them,” the Qunari adds.

“That too,” says Adelaide, nodding. After a long moment, she smiles. “You know, I think cooking isn’t as hard as people say it is,” she says, as she uses a wooden prong to flip the river fish over the coals. Some of them are already beginning to blacken at the edges. Solas stares at the fish for a moment, then looks up and sees the Qunari watching him, eyebrow raised. Even when their gazes meet, the man’s expression doesn’t change.

“Be careful about your timing, boss,” the warrior says, after a short pause. Solas is the first to look away.

“I am going to meditate,” he tells his companions, rising from the log. “Please alert me when the fish are… adequately prepared.”

Solas’s solitude lasts for all of five minutes, until the Qunari finally tells Adelaide that fish aren’t supposed to be _that_ crispy and Adelaide panics, rushing to save the doomed fish. It’s when she’s wincing down at the almost entirely blackened fish on the serving plate that the Warden emerges, clad in full armor.

“Morning, my lady,” he addresses the Inquisitor, and she nods.

“Morning, Blackwall.” She offers him a wooden plate. “Care to try the chef’s special this morning?”

“And what is the chef’s special?”

Adelaide smiles. “Partially burnt fish.” Solas raises an eyebrow, and Adelaide glances down at the nearly entirely black offerings. “Uh. Make that _mostly_ burnt fish. I was being generous.”

The Warden only smiles, taking the plate and sitting beside her. “I’m not picky enough to say no to breakfast. What’s the plan today?” As she tells him, Solas takes a portion of her cooking, but the texture makes it difficult to swallow. Despite it, he manages to finish it—in fact, Adelaide is the one who dumps the majority of her breakfast, and its leftovers, into the fire. Once she discards her breakfast, the Qunari follows suit.

They have some rations of berries and some salted meat from the village markets they had passed through, and that ends up being the majority of their breakfast. But the morning peace does not last long.

“Boss,” says the Qunari, as they are gathering the dishes. “Look east. Seems like our strike team’s on the move.”

Solas lifts his gaze to the horizon, squinting against the bright morning light. A thin column of pale gray smoke curls toward the cloudless sky, its source hidden by the swaying grasses of the Plains. Yet he remembers this area. He looks to Adelaide, who is rising to her feet. “Is there not a village east of our position?”

She swallows, nodding. “Ville Montelevan.”

“Didn’t the report say the strike teams kidnapped the people who lived there?” the Warden calls, already fetching the horses. Solas gets up and joins him, working to saddle the mounts as quickly as possible. Adelaide is there soon as well, coaxing Solas’s mare into taking her bit.

“Yes,” she says. “So they have no reason to burn down the town.”

“Unless they did not take _every_ villager,” Solas reasons, glancing over his shoulder. The Qunari has doused the campfire and is working to adjust the straps on his brace. After a moment, he heaves himself up, grimacing. Solas waits for him to get onto the back of his charger before mounting his own mare. Adelaide and the Warden are already riding toward the fire.

When they reach Ville Montelevan, there are no screams of terror or shouts to put out the fire. There is only the rustle of the wind on the plain and the _crack_ of fire consuming wood until it snaps and breaks apart. Several houses are burning, some already little more are black, barren husks—and Solas sees a little boy, a determined set to his mouth, waddling toward one house, a bucket in his shaking hands. Water sloshes over the rim with every step.

Behind him is Cole, carrying a bucket in each hand.

“Ho there!” the Warden calls, making the child look up. He startles so badly he almost drops the bucket, but in an instant, Cole is kneeling beside him, steadying him.

Ah. This is where he’s been.

“It’s all right,” the spirit says, in Orlesian. “They’re friends. They won’t hurt you.” The boy doesn’t look convinced, but he nods, and readjusts his grip on her bucket. Dutifully, he dumps the water on the flames that have spread to the dry grasses. It extinguishes with a hiss, and the boy switches buckets with Cole.

“Solas, help me,” Adelaide calls. They dismount. “Cole, get him back!” she shouts, and turns to Solas. “I can summon some ice, but we’ll need more than just that to save these homes.”

“Perhaps it would be better to let them burn,” Solas suggests, even as he takes his staff in hand. “Control the fires and retain our energy for the Venatori.”

“People lived here,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t want them to come back to nothing. Can you summon a blizzard?”

“Yes.” He will have to be careful not to overextend himself. He can already feel the warning pulse of a migraine, though it is nothing compared to the overwhelming heat before him.

“Show me.” She looks at Cole over her shoulder. “All of you, get back. Cole, take the kid!”

Once their party is at a safe distance, she joins Solas’s side and rolls up her sleeves. Firelight gleams on her face, but her eyes only show determination. Solas shows her how to anchor herself, how to move her hands when summoning. They will need a true blizzard, not a fury, to quell this blaze.

“Now,” he calls, over the roar of the fire. “Imagine the snow in your mind’s eye. Reach through the Veil, enforce your will over it, and it will come.”

She moves like Dorian, though the fluidity of her movements supplant his dramatics. Solas joins her, and soon he begins to hear the warning gusts of the wind. The flames falter as a sharp, cold breeze sweeps through the area, lifting the hems of their clothing. Dark clouds begin to form above the fire. “Keep going!” he calls, and Adelaide furrows her brow, boots digging into the soil beneath her.

Suddenly, he smells the sea on the air. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Adelaide lift her hand toward the stormclouds above them. The air trembles, and he feels the Veil give way as snowflakes begin to swirl around them. He pulls, too, and the wind picks up, howling and cold against his ear.

Snow crusts his eyelashes and melts on his cheeks, but he smiles when he sees the fire start to die down, despite the wind. The blizzard thickens, turning into a grey fog and concealing everything around him. His toes dig into the earth and find snow already dusting the ground.

He lowers his hand and withdraws his mana into himself, conserving his reserves as he watches the snowstorm rage against the fire. When it clears, and its fog dissipates, the fire is gone. All that remains of the village are a handful of intact structures; the rest is blackened and skeletal frames, or rubble.

He looks at Adelaide, who is watching the aftermath with uncertainty. After a moment, she smiles, eyes crinkling, and pride blooms in his chest. “Well done,” he says, and her smile widens, her cheeks flushing pink. Someone claps behind them.

“Impressive,” the Warden calls out.

Solas turns and sees Cole kneeling next to the child, whispering reassurances. After a moment, the child swallows hard and blinks up at them. “ _Parlez-vous orlaisienne?_ ” he asks. Solas is careful not to react, even as Adelaide asks what the child had said.

“He asked if we speak Orlesian,” the Qunari says. “I can translate, Boss.” He doesn’t kneel like Cole; instead, he sits on the ground, suppressing a grunt when he bends his braced leg, and smiles at the boy. Solas half-listens to their conversation, leaning on his staff and keeping an eye out on the plains. Perhaps the strike team had set the fire and waited to see who would come put it out.

The Qunari catches his attention when he says, “The kid says the Venatori didn’t do this, Boss. They took the people but didn’t set the fire.”

“What? Then who did?” the Warden asks.

“The… hold on.” The Qunari turns to the child, asks a clarifying question— _did you say men of freedom of the Dales?_ —and when his question is answered with a blunt _no_ he laughs. “The Free Men of the Dales. He says they’re soldiers who left the war and they apparently just want to kill people. He doesn’t know why they set the fire.”    

“Scout Harding says the Venatori took the villagers,” Adelaide says, frowning. “How did he escape?”

The Qunari translates and, after a moment, says, “He hid in the prairie grass. Guess they either didn’t see him or didn’t care. Says he saw them take the people east, toward the trenches. He’s only seen Freemen since then.”

They had done their best to avoid the fighting between the Orlesians, during their last visit; she had wanted to help the villagers, not inflame tensions between the Inquisition and Orlais. But if these Freemen of the Dales were taking advantage of the chaos…

“They burned down people’s homes,” the Warden says, crossing his arms. “We shouldn’t let that go. The Inquisition was formed to protect the innocent.”

“Spoken nobly,” Solas says, “but irrelevant.” The Warden gives him a sour look, but Solas only leans against his staff, meeting his glare evenly. “Irritating either side of this war would impede the Inquisition’s efforts to limit chaos in this area.”

“He’s right. If Orlais starts breathing down our neck because we showed support for a side in this civil war, things would get a lot harder,” Adelaide says, frowning. “And Corypheus’s attack destroyed Scout Harding’s map of the Orlesian Army’s outposts.”

“We’re going in blind, then,” the Qunari says. “If there’s a chance there are Venatori in the trenches, we should go after them.”

“The trail leads east,” Cole says. “You shouldn’t abandon all those people. It’s not _you_.”

Adelaide watches him for a long while. Then she shakes her head. “Fine. Screw Orlais,” she mutters, then crouches in front of the child. With a smile and careful, thickly accented Orlesian, she asks the boy his name. The child looks at her and hides his face in Cole’s pants.

“It’s all right!” Cole tells him in Orlesian, cheerfully. “She wants to be your friend.”

The boy looks at Cole, brow furrowed, then looks at Adelaide. “Antoine,” he mutters.

Adelaide introduces herself, and after she shakes his small hand, she looks to Cole. “Cole, the rest of us are going to see if we can find a trail for the kidnapped villagers. Can you take Antoine to camp and keep him safe for us?”

“Yes.” Cole holds out his hand, smiling when the boy takes it without hesitation. He waves at them, then turns and walks away, talking easily with the child.

Once they are out of earshot, Adelaide helps the Qunari stand. “We’re going east, then,” she says. The Warden helps her mount her horse. Solas looks away. “Let’s just hope we don’t anger Orlais in the process.”

They spot a battlement just before the afternoon. Wooden spikes rise out of the ground, a silhouette against the sun, surrounded by scorched land that provides an excellent view of the surrounding valley. A ditch is dug five feet deep and twice as wide around the entirety of the battlement, and there is one bridge.

A soldier is fighting a rage demon on it. The demon snarls, slashing out, knocking the sword from the man’s grip. The soldier steps back, and though Solas cannot see his face, he knows the posture of a man afraid of death. It is the same, always: hunched shoulders and supplicating palms facing upward.

Solas freezes the demon, and the soldier is so startled he scrambles backward, falling off the bridge and into the ditch. The Warden is off his horse and driving his sword through the demon in an instant, faster than Solas had expected. The corpse shatters, and fragments of the demon hiss as steaming ichor leaks from the ice and dissipates in the air.

The Warden helps the man to higher ground, and the soldier begins speaking to them in frantic Orlesian. “Thank you, sers,” he gasps. “ _Thank you_. I feared the worst before you came.”

“What’s he saying, Bull?” Adelaide asks.

“Ah,” says the soldier in thickly accented trade tongue, some of the hope dimmed in his eyes now. “You are not Orlesian, then.”

“We’re with the Inquisition,” the Qunari supplies. “We heard the Freemen of the Dales were coming by here. Didn’t want them to cause any more trouble.”

The soldier shakes his head, wincing as he presses a hand to his abdomen. “Sit,” Adelaide says immediately, stepping forward. “Please. Before you fall. I am a healer.”

The soldier nods, leaning on her as he sits, and winces. Adelaide kneels beside him, already seeking out the damage, fingers undoing the straps of his armor to get to the scarlet-stained shirt below. “Bastard deserters,” the soldier hisses, turning his head and spitting upon the grass. “That’s what those damned Freemen are. But—I did not see any come this way. I was too busy fighting the demons and the dead.”

Adelaide’s hands falter. “The dead?”

The soldier nods. “So many were dying… we could not construct individual pyres. So we dug holes for the bodies, to burn later. But men in white, they came many days ago. Their magic—summoned demons, raised the dead again.”

“Sounds like the Venatori,” the Warden says.

“Are you the only survivor?”

The soldier nods again. “Marshal Proulx sent me here. My men and I were meant to clear the western ramparts. But we… could not succeed. There were too many.”

“Marshal Proulx?”

“The commander of Emperor Gaspard’s forces in the Exalted Plains. He is stationed in Fort Revasan. I meant to reach him, tell him of my failure, but the demons spooked my horse. If you had not come…”

“Where is Fort Revasan?”

“Further east,” the Qunari replies. “Couldn’t tell you where, specifically.”

“If you have a map—” the soldier says, but stops when the Qunari shakes his head. Adelaide finishes up and pulls away, resting her hands in her lap. “There is a map, in my office, but you would have to fight through the hordes to get to it.”

“Can you ride with us to Fort Revasan?” the Warden asks. “We could speak to the Marshal there. He could tell us which ramparts the Venatori got to.”

“All of them,” the soldier says, laughing without mirth. He sits up, cringing again, and Adelaide’s hands are there, supporting him. She helps him stand, then mounts her own gelding and helps him climb up behind her.

“Hold tight to me,” she says, and Solas watches as the soldier sags against her, arms wrapping around her middle. He swallows and looks away, staring toward the eastern horizon. “Which way is Fort Revasan?” she asks, urging her horse forward with a soft click of her tongue.

The soldier guides them east; the ride is longer than he had expected, and the afternoon sun is relentless upon them all. At last, the flat land they ride across turns into a hill, and soon Solas sees the silhouette of a castle—not of elvhen or even Dalish make—looming from an outcrop of boulders. “There,” the soldier says. “That is Fort Revasan.”

They reach the shadow of the crumbling tower before the Qunari stiffens. “Boss,” he calls out, “hold up.”

Adelaide stops her horse in the shade. “What is it, Bull?”

“There are no guards,” he says. “The ramparts are empty. See?”

The Warden frowns. “Something’s wrong,” he says, dismounting. “We should go on foot from here.”

“Agreed,” Solas says. He hands his mare’s bridle to the Warden, then helps Adelaide and the soldier dismount. He sets the soldier down in the shade and says, “You should stay here while we investigate. The Venatori may have struck this place as well.”

“Maker damn them if they did,” the soldier says. “Give me the reins of your horses. I will not be entirely useless here.” He lifts a hand and grimaces almost immediately, pressing a hand to his wounded side. When he pulls his hand back, there is fresh blood on his palm.

“The wound reopened,” Adelaide says, beginning to kneel. “Let me—”

“Boss, not the time,” the Qunari says. “We need to check on the soldiers.”

Adelaide takes a breath. “Right. We’ll be back soon, Rosselin. Keep pressure on the bleeding.”

It is a short climb, rounding the border and trekking up the hill. The air is still, silent, and despite the lack of wind Solas can smell faint traces of death. There are bloodstains on the stone of the bridge connecting the boulder and the cliff the fort is built upon, but Solas sees no bodies.

The gates to the fort are splayed open, splintered and broken at the ends, as if a great deal of Force magic had been used to tear the doors off of their hinges.

“Careful,” he murmurs to the others, reaching for his staff.

The silence is broken by the pop of the Anchor behind him, an instantly recognizable sound that hisses through the air. Solas turns just as Adelaide cries out in pain, her steps faltering and her right hand moving to grip the heel of her left. Green sparks shower from the Anchor, dissipating in the air. “There’s a rift,” she grits out, closing her eyes. “Really close. Be on the lookout.”

The Warden unsheathes his sword, eyes narrowed. They wait until Adelaide can stand upright again before proceeding, walking slowly under the portcullis. The damaged roof allows patches of sunlight to bleed through, illuminating the darkened ground in spots. In the center of the open courtyard is a staircase that leads to a lower level, its stone darkened with dried blood.

Solas tightens his grip on his staff. “Tread lightly,” he says, and though he does not speak loudly, his voice still startles a flock of sparrows. The sound of their beating wings as they escape the fort echo off the stone.

The bone-grating shriek of a despair demon answers the sound, echoing from the chamber below. A heartbeat later, Adelaide gasps again, and out of the corner of his eye he sees her fall to her knees. The Qunari is there in an instant, helping her stand, providing a shoulder to lean on. Solas closes the space between them quickly, holding out his hand.

“May I see?”

She nods, breathing hard through her teeth, cheeks pale and forehead lined with sweat. He gently extends her arm, turning her hand so it faces upward. The Anchor is a deep green, pulsing with life, and the skin around it is puffy and swollen, as if rejecting an infection. When he presses down on the inflamed skin with his fingers, she cringes and tries to pull her hand back, reflexively.

“My apologies,” he says, and casts a small ice glyph across her palm, to lessen the inflammation. With a quick turn of his wrist, he siphons some of the excess power into himself. The change is immediate—the Anchor’s glow dims, and some of the tension in her body eases.

Her sigh betrays her belief. “What did you do?”

“I siphoned extraneous energy,” he says, looking up and meeting her dark gaze. “If we are indeed near a rift, the Anchor will consume more power, as you are closer to the Fade, and thus increase the pressure in your hand. I… lessened it, somewhat. But the sooner we find and close the rift, the better.”

“Ten sovereigns it’s in the basement with the despair demon,” the Warden says, nodding toward the staircase.

“Not taking that bet,” the Qunari returns. “You okay, Boss?”

Adelaide nods, flexing her hand. “Yeah—yeah. I’m okay. Let’s kill that thing.”

Descending the staircase takes them into a long hallway that stretches forward, and the further they walk the darker and colder the corridor grows. At some point, Solas summons Veilfire, and flickering green light reveals unopened wine barrels, joined together by thin cobwebs. “The spiderwebs aren’t that developed yet,” the Qunari says. “The soldiers must have died recently.”

“There aren’t any bodies,” Adelaide points out. “I don’t want to write them off just yet.”

“Their corpses could have been revived and bound to the Venatori,” Solas replies. His breath mists out in a fog in front of him, and elaborate ice crystals have begun to bloom inside the cracks of the corridor. They aren’t far now.

“Or taken east,” says the Warden. “We don’t know.”

They turn a corner, and are met with a door that has been frozen solid. Adelaide’s voice is low, urgent. “Bull, kick it open. Solas, I want a barrier on us the moment that door’s open. Blackwall, I’m going to go straight for the rift. Keep the demons off me.”

Solas thinks of her hesitance in giving orders in the Western Approach, and smiles. She has begun to find her confidence as a leader. Good. “Understood.”

“Okay.” She takes a breath. “Go.”

The wood splinters easily as the Qunari slams his shoulder against it, the frozen beams unready for the brute force of the Qunari’s full weight. The Qunari pulls back and Solas casts a barrier while flinging the Veilfire to the center of the room, illuminating in blue-green the hunched, floating form of a demon dressed in rags.

Behind it is a rift, crackling and emerald, bearing vague shapes. Adelaide darts to the side, using the darkness as cover. The Qunari bellows, drawing the demon’s attention, and Solas twists, trying to keep the three of them in his sights.

A blinding beam of green light erupts from the darkness, and the demon hisses, turning toward the source of the light. Solas places a fire glyph underneath it, and a heartbeat later it ignites, flames licking at the dry robes of the hunched figure. The demon screams, clawing at its face and curling into itself, and its agony gives the Qunari enough time to cut it down.

The rift contracts, resisting the power of the Mark,and Solas watches a pair of clawed hands reach through the Fade, pushing on the edges of reality. It is a surreal thing to witness, even as the Anchor forces the rift to shrink. Out of the corner of his eye, Adelaide falls to her knees, using her other arm to support herself.

Another pair of hands, this time edged with talons, joins the first, and pushes against the closing rift. Adelaide cries out as the connection snaps, and the rift burns as a terror and hunger demon pull themselves into the world. The terror opens its maw, revealing two sets of sharpened teeth, and lets loose a piercing scream that rings in Solas’s ears.

An unmistakable, if muffled, laugh echoes through the room, and Solas feels gooseflesh ripple across his skin. Adelaide had heard it too—she scrambles up, flexing her hand as the Warden charges the demons.

“Quickly! Close it!” Solas calls, placing a fresh barrier over the warriors. Adelaide staggers, lifting her arm toward the rift. He can see the sweat on her brow, blue-green in the mixed light of the Veilfire and the rift.

The hunger demon is dead, the only evidence of its presence the ashes it had left on the stone floor, but the terror had swatted the warriors across as if they were mere annoyances. Solas steps back, fingers tightening around his staff as the terror strides toward him. A mere thought sets it alight, but even as its flesh blackens, the terror rushes toward him with a single-minded purpose. He cannot Fade-step quickly enough to avoid its clawed hands wrapping around him.

Solas struggles, kicking out, mind racing for a quick spell that will force the demon to release him. But before he can cast anything, a stream of green light—the Anchor—catches the terror’s attention. Its four eyes blink, rows of teeth clicking, and it tosses him aside. Solas hits the wall back-first and grunts at the pain that reverberates through him, pulling at the still-healing dragon scars on his torso.

He reaches for his chest, making sure his old wounds had not reopened, and looks up to see the terror slipping through the Fade. “Adelaide!” he cries out.

“Almost done!” she shouts back. He glances to the side; the Warden is stirring, but there is blood trickling from the Qunari’s skull, and he is unmoving. The exit to the cellar is across the room; they would have to kill the terror to get across the room.

 _Fenedhis_.

Adelaide closes her fist, sealing the rift, just as the terror appears from behind her. She jumps toward Solas, barely missing the terror’s claws, and lands hard on her hands. Solas tries to push himself up, gritting his teeth against the pain in his chest, reaching for his mana pool.

Just under half of his reserves; he can feel the ache of the emptiness, and it grates on him.

Adelaide turns onto her back, scrambling away from the advancing demon. The demon screams again, so loudly Solas cringes, feeling a migraine pierce through his skull. He sees it raise a clawed hand—

A sword sprouts through its chest, slashing down, nearly cleaving it in two. The terror stiffens, maw opening in a silent scream, and its body dissipates, spiralling into the air only to blink out of existence.

A silhouette, almost black in the darkness, bends down and lifts the Veilfire torch. Lifting it reveals a man in armor, wearing a metal mask that covers the entirety of his face, with holes only for his eyes. A plume of red extends from the top of his elaborate helmet.

“Well,” he says, in thickly accented Common, “this is a surprise.”

Adelaide rises to her knees. Solas sits up and catches her arm. “The Iron Bull,” he murmurs to her. “His head is bleeding.”

Adelaide turns at once, moving over to the Qunari after checking on the Warden. The armored man watches her cradle the Qunari’s head in her lap, hands glowing with golden healing magic. “We were waiting for another wave of undead,” he explains. “When it was too quiet, I sent a man from our barricade, and he heard shouts from the cellar. I investigated, and found you. My name is Marshal Bastien Proulx, leader of the garrison here at Fort Revasan.”

“How long were you watching us fight?”

“Only the terror. I did not feel the need to intervene. You were handling the fight admirably, until you left yourselves open.”

Adelaide looks toward the ceiling, inhaling. “Do you think this is an Orlesian thing?” she asks them, arching an eyebrow. “Staying behind and watching us fight instead of helping us?”

The Warden’s laugh is a rough rasp, and Solas begins to chuckle before the pain in his abdomen cuts him off. He grits his teeth, shifting his shoulders and feeling wet spots on his back. Perhaps the impact against the stone had scraped his skin through his tunic. He will need to check it, later.

The marshal only laughs, however. “My apologies. I wished only to admire how well you all fought. One cannot do such a thing in the heat of battle.”

“Yeah, it’s easy to admire us when you’re not the one risking your ass,” Adelaide mutters, tapping the Qunari’s temple gently. The marshal makes no noise; his reaction is hidden by his mask. The Warden offers his hand to Solas, helping him stand, and out of the corner of his eye Solas sees Adelaide lean over their fourth companion. “Hey, Bull? Can you hear me?”

After a few more moments, the Qunari groans, stirring. “Hey, Boss,” he greets, hoarsely.

“I think you hit your head when the terror hit you, Bull. I’m going to summon a little bit of light, okay?”

At his grunt of assent, Adelaide lifts a single finger, summoning a magelight. The Qunari winces, and she extinguishes the light as quickly as she’d summoned it. “Yeah. Your pupil is too big. I think you have a concussion.”

“Shit,” the Qunari says, slowly sitting up. “Guess that’s why my head hurts as all hell, then.”

Adelaide laughs, then notices the marshal, standing in silence just off to the side. “We found your man,” she tells the marshal, then. “Corporal Rosselin. He’s outside the fort, just under the shadow of the cliffs on the left.”

“Man?” the marshal repeats. “Only one was left?”

“Yes.”

“ _Merde_.” The marshal glances down, the feather behind his helm trembling as he shakes his head. “It seems I owe you two debts, ah…”

“Inquisitor Adelaide Trevelyan,” Adelaide says, rising to her feet. She and the Warden both help the Qunari stand, though the warrior has to lean against the wall for balance.

“Madame Inquisitor,” the marshal says, bowing low. “I wish to formally thank you, for escorting Rosselin to safety here. Your companions are injured—please. It is safe inside the barricade, and you and your companions will have plenty of room to refresh themselves and recover from their injuries.”

“Barricade?” the Warden repeats. “What barricade?”

“There are few of us left,” the marshal replies, crossing his arms. “Every hour or so, a horde of dead come to pick us off, one by one. Sent by animated by a group of rebel mages in white, and always accompanied by demons. They drove us back into the fort itself, and we have locked ourselves in. I thought if we cleared the ramparts, there would be fewer attacks… but it seems the cost was not worth the risk.”

“Marshal! The dead!” a voice cries in Orlesian from above, and the marshal stiffens, hand going to the sword at his side.

“Inquisitor, come with me, now,” he says in Common. “A scout has spotted a fresh horde.”

“Wait—our horses are still outside. And Rosselin.”

Though his face is hidden, his voice is grim. “There is nothing to do for him now. He knew the risks when he accepted the assignment. If he and the horses are well-hidden, they should be safe. The dead’s focus is only on the fort.” At Adelaide’s further hesitance, he sighs. “If you will not come with me, Inquisitor, I will have no choice but to keep you locked out.” He nods to the Qunari, who pushes off the wall with a scowl. “Which I would not recommend, since your companion is injured.”

“I think we should do it,” the Warden says. “At least get Bull someplace he can rest.”

“I can still fight—” the Qunari begins.

“No, you can’t,” Adelaide says. “Not with a concussion. Healer’s orders.”

“Inquisitor,” says Solas, “if the Venatori have directed their thralls to attack the fort, then they will not bother searching the cliffs. Rosselin and the horses should be safe. I cannot say the same for these men.”

Adelaide stares at him, then looks at the marshal. “How long does the horde last?”

The marshal’s laugh is low and bitter. “Until we kill them all.”

“Of course,” the Warden mutters.

 _“Marshal!”_ a soldier calls, again, loud and panicked.

Adelaide hears him, and the uncertainty in her eyes dissipates, determination replacing it. She looks at the Qunari, then the marshal, and nods. “Okay. Let’s go.”


End file.
